Cosatu in Limpopo province to target VBS looters
JOHANNESBURG – The Congress of South African Trade Unions in Limpopo says it will embark on rolling mass action against individuals and entities in the province who looted the collapsed VBS Mutual Bank.
Provincial secretary Gerald Twala said the labour federation would organise marches to seven Limpopo municipalities who illegally deposited a combined R1 billion into the mutual bank and demand that implicated officials and politicians resign.
”We are going to mobilise our alliance partners, civil society and the VBS depositors, majority of whom are elderly and poor to join the demonstrations,” Twala said.
“As part of our rolling mass action, the federation is going to organise and lead demonstrations on November 2 to all the seven implicated municipalities and demand accountability and resignation of politicians and senior officials who took illegal and unlawful decisions to invest public monies into VBS.”
Limpopo municipalities who deposited cash at VBS include Tubatse Fetakgomo, Greater Giyani, Lepelle Nkumpi, Collins Chabane, Epharaim Mogale, Makhado and the Vhembe district municipality.
Implicated persons include provincial leaders of the national ruling African National Congress, including deputy chairwoman and Vhembe mayor Florence Radzilani, treasurer Danny Masiza and former ANC youth league leader Kabelo Matsepe.
An independent report into the collapse of VBS named 50 people and entities that “gratuitously” received cash from the mutual bank over a three year period commencing from March 2015.
The explosive report commissioned by the South African Reserve Bank found that there was “wide scale looting and pillaging of the monies placed on deposit at VBS”.
The nearly R2 billion money looted included clients’ life savings and deposits, including millions of rands deposited by municipalities, even though the Public Finance Management Act does not permit depositing public funds into a mutual bank. The report said the deposits were made in exchange for bribes.
The Reserve Bank placed VBS under curatorship in March after it was found to be facing a liquidity crisis.
– African News Agency (ANA)
Source: iol.co.za