The looting of about R2.3 billion from the now collapsed VBS bank that has recently hogged the spotlight seems to be sowing divisions between comrades after an explosive affidavit by one of the culprits.
The bank’s former chairperson, Tshifhiwa Matodzi, in a detailed testimony, has implicated individuals and political parties including the EFF, the ANC and its alliance partner the SACP.
Matodzi was handed a 15-year jail term by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, last week after pleading guilty to 33 counts which include corruption, theft, fraud and money laundering.
The latest to be pointing fingers at each other are the SACP’s former and current leadership over a R3 million conference debt that was allegedly settled through hard-earned funds of VBS investors.
On Wednesday, SACP chairperson Blade Nzimande lashed out at his comrade, former Limpopo party secretary Phatse Justice Piitso, after he penned a letter calling out the SACP to pay back R3 million alleged to have been paid to the Birchwood Hotel for the communist party’s 2017 national conference - from VBS coffers.
In the letter, Piitso also called on Nzimande to resign and to issue a public apology to the people of SA, the working class and the poor pensioners, stokvel clubs and burial societies they stole from.
“Flowing from the explosive nature and extent of graft in the bank which resulted in the syphoning of pensioners’ money and poor people’s investments at industrial scale, the national outcry this has elicited has been and rightfully so, unassailable,” Piitso wrote.
“It is preposterous that our vanguard party has been implicated as a beneficiary of the obscene looting of the money of the poor, the mass base for which it was founded and represents.”
He also called Nzimande out on his “moral obligation to take over the responsibility of the morass ... the most revolutionary and disciplined would have not just voluntarily resigned but equally forfeited membership of our glorious party”.
Whether the (alleged) financial benefit was solicited through commission or omission was insignificant, he said.
“The point is that the SACP had naturally taken an obvious stance to condemn the looting of the VBS by way of public statements and expressed the desire of consequence to those implicated,” Piitso added.
However, in a television interview on Wednesday, Nzimande slammed Piitso, saying he was not representing the party or anyone else but himself.
Nzimande further blamed the media for what he called “recycling” the VBS scandal after they had continuously stated that the payment to the 2017 conference was a donation.
“It’s a pity because the media is recycling an old story and are not bothering to go back to what we (initially) said about the matter …
“The SACP did not take any money from the VBS … It was a food company that donated to our conference.
“Even the affidavit does not say anything about corruption on the side of the SACP. The SACP did not steal money from VBS,” Nzimande said.
In his plea bargain statement to the court, Matodzi alleged that after the news that VBS had granted former president Jacob Zuma a loan for his Nkandla homestead made headlines, the SACP published a statement through its Gauteng chairperson at the time, Jacob Mamabolo.
The party’s statement was seen to be damaging to the VBS brand which prompted Matodzi to seek a meeting with the SACP.
“I instructed Gogoro communications to obtain contacts for the relevant SACP individuals.
“Gogoro arranged a meeting to meet with the SACP Gauteng team headed by Mr Jacob Mamabolo and the VBS team led by Andile (Ramavhunga) (former VBS CEO).
“I did not attend this meeting. Another meeting was arranged between Mamabolo and I at a boutique hotel in Groenkloof, Pretoria.
“The meeting was a follow up of the meeting that was held by Andile's team and how the relationship between VBS and the SACP could be improved.
“Another meeting was held between myself and Mamabolo at the Palazzo Hotel in Fourways. At this meeting discussions were general in nature and Mamabolo wanted to know more about how members of the SACP could be approached to bank with VBS.
“Around July 2017 I received a call from Mamabolo seeking assistance with settlement of the SACP conference bill of R3 million at Birchwood Hotel in Kempton Park.
“On July 6, 2017, the said amount was paid directly to Birchwood Hotel from MML food services. There were no further requests received from the SACP regarding payment,” Matodzi wrote in the statement.
In what seems to be another contradiction between comrades, the EFF this week was seen back-peddling over the VBS matter after the party's former chairperson Dali Mpofu contradicted the red berets’ initial response that they had not received any money from VBS.
Mpofu conceded that the party had received funds as a “donation”.
Meanwhile, Limpopo ANC chairperson and the province’s Social Development MEC, Florence Radzilani, lives to see another day after the party in the province defended her from stepping aside over the VBS scandal.
Radzilani was also implicated in Matodzi’s affidavit after she allegedly received R300 000 from VBS for investing in the bank while she was the Vhembe District mayor.
The Star