VBS Mutual Bank customers at long queues outside the bank in Thohoyandou, Limpopo. Picture: Gallo Images / Antonio Muchave
There is one thing we’ve learnt about VBS Mutual Bank: the corrupt in our society act without consideration of the ones who would be affected.
There is something deeply sad about VBS: the faces of the elderly victims who deserved more, but were left reeling, are worlds apart from the faces of those who benefitted in ways that are the very definition of greed.
A tale of two cities. It is the epoch of belief. It is the epoch of incredulity.
It begs the question: to what end do people want to enrich themselves, while they jet off for summer holidays, while their victims are barely keeping their lights on?
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What cruel world do we live in where personal luxuries are enough for a trade-off with the basic needs of others?
In every situation, we must always post-mortem the result – whether good or bad. How else do we learn if we do not seek the root cause and preventative measures to avoid repetition?
So, here we are, the men and women, who were sent to lead, set about finding their wealth in South Africa by any means.
With one hand on the Batho Pele documents and the other in the pockets they were entrusted with, millions of rands were looted – and this was continuously advertised on social media platforms for all to see.
Eventually amassing enough wealth to offer them many opulent homes, a convoy of cars and endless holidays.
South Africa has become the land of milk and honey because, as we have seen, there are palms that need to be greased at the right price.
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It stems from somewhere that the government has the audacity to hand over shacks, no matter how temporary their use, have ribboncutting ceremonies and handing them over to our people.
Somewhere in a roomful of men and women, charged with the capacity to make decisions on society’s behalf, they decide that these shacks will be handed over to people who have the bare minimum.
The rest of society would applaud that with our tax money we would fail to question the dignity that they compromised, the misappropriation of state resources masked under Covid measures and the lacklustre performance of a government that has been in power for almost three decades.
It is from this sea and pool where the corrupt found their mates and how their corruption flourished. All this, with the poor being the losers, further pushed into poverty.
To what end, in this society, with this economy, do the poor continue to be a means for the enrichment of the corrupt?
