SACP denies receiving millions from VBS Bank
The South African Communist Party has denied receiving R3 million in return for its silence over links between VBS and the Guptas.
VBS Bank branding. Picture: Moneyweb
A report in City Press alleges that VBS Bank paid the South African Communist Party the amount for its national congress in 2017. In exchange, the report states, the SACP agreed to not ‘make noise’ about the links between VBS and the controversial Gupta family.
The paper cites an anonymous source who was a senior executive at the bank saying that majority shareholder Vele Investments paid the money through a subsidiary company in order to hide the link between the bank and the SACP.
SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo says that the party has no knowledge of such a transaction.
Mashilo told the Citizen on Thursday that the SACP “has not received a cent” from the bank.
Mashilo said he had checked with the communist party’s financial department which is responsible for its national accounts, which made it clear that the SACP had “not received a cent from VBS”.
READ MORE: SACP did not receive a cent from VBS – Alex Mashilo
“I have never been at VBS or Vele Investments. I don’t know their internal shenanigans, I’ve never been part of them, neither has the SACP been part of those shenanigans,” Mashilo told EWN.
The SACP has strongly denied that the bank has became embroiled in scandal over widespread looting and graft.
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