Victims of the VBS Mutual Bank (VBS) scandal who lost their life savings say it is ironic that Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members are demanding the return of “stolen” land while failing to pay back the money they allegedly received unlawfully from the bank.
Early last month, the self-confessed kingpin behind the looting of the VBS Mutual Bank, Tshifiwa Matodzi, was sentenced to an effective 15 years in jail after securing a plea agreement with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
The wheels of justice are grinding, albeit at a painfully slow pace. But, as we learned during a trip to Limpopo this week, that is scant consolation to the victims who feel their plight has been forgotten.
Matodzi is the second VBS official to be jailed for the theft of R1.9 billion deposited by municipalities, burial societies and pensioners until 2018, when it was eventually placed under curatorship.
The bank’s former chief financial officer, Phillip Truter, was the first, and was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2020 after he — like Matodzi — pleaded guilty to charges of fraud, money laundering and corruption.
Truter has been released on parole after serving three years and six months of his sentence.
Truter and Matodzi are likely to be state witnesses in the NPA’s case against a further 12 accused — including former ANC Limpopo provincial treasurer Danny Msiza — which will resume in Pretoria on 14 August.
The matter is at the pre-trial stage and all indications are that the case will be a drawn-out one, because Msiza and former ANC leader Kabelo Matsepe have indicated they will bring a number of applications, which will delay the matter.
Criminal charges may also be brought against more people implicated in the affidavit by Matodzi — including prominent members of both the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters — over payments they received from the looted millions.
Six years have passed since the bank was placed under curatorship. A parallel process of the recovery of looted funds on behalf of the VBS creditors has also been under way since 2018.
Like the criminal process, it has been painfully slow, in particular for the individual investors, pensioners and burial societies who lost everything in the orgy of looting.
They complain that much of the focus is on the funds lost by the Limpopo municipalities — which unlawfully invested in VBS in return for bribes to the officials that led them — and that they have been forgotten.
Residents this week told their painful stories of loss, their concerns about a lack of information from the liquidator and their fears that they will be the last to be remembered and recompensed — if at all.
Although the priority of recovering lost municipal funds is understood, it cannot be correct that the needs of those who are least able to survive the loss of their life savings may be left to last.