Cyril Ramaphosa knew about VBS looting, ‘and did nothing’ – report

President Cyril Ramaphosa allegedly knew about the widespread corruption and graft at embattled VBS Mutual Bank but didn’t take any action for an uncomfortably long time, according to a report in City Press.

The paper reports that a major VBS shareholder briefed Ramaphosa, who was at the time deputy president, about the looting that was taking place at VBS last year. The source alleges Ramaphosa said he would do something out the situation, but subsequently nothing happened.

“I know that the shareholder met with Ramaphosa, who was not president at the time. The shareholder briefed him about the outrageous corruption at VBS,” a source close to the shareholder is quoted as saying.

“During the meeting, Cyril apparently raised serious concerns about VBS. He promised to do something about it,” another source said.

Presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko told City Press there was no record of a meeting between Ramaphosa and a VBS shareholder.

Ramaphosa on Saturday spoke for the first time about the VBS scandal, saying “those who have done wrong against our people should be made to account without delay”.

“Nobody loves corruption except those who are perpetrators of corruption,” Ramaphosa said during his keynote address as ANC president to a fundraising gala dinner in KwaZulu-Natal.

“There needs to be consequences. If people have done wrong against the people of South Africa, they must know that there would be consequences and that the consequences are going to be quite harsh against them,” he was quoted as saying in the Saturday Star.

He also wrote about the VBS bank heist in his column on the ANC Today website.

“The ANC is at a crossroads. We must painfully acknowledge that the decline in the ethics, values and traditions of the movement have led to a growing alienation between us and South African society,” he said.

“Contemporary events in South Africa have thrust into the spotlight the pervasive influence of greed and self-accumulation at the expense of our people. The VBS Bank scandal is but one instance of the withering away of our society’s moral fibre, as a small minority enriched themselves with utterly no regard for the destitution and destruction they created in the lives of honest, hardworking South Africans.

“Similarly, testimonies at the Zondo Commission of Enquiry paint a bleak picture of hidden hands purportedly manipulating key institutions and offices of State, abusing political patronage in a web of deceit,” wrote Ramaphosa.

VBS Bank has been at the centre of a storm of controversy since last Wednesday when a report commissioned by Treasury called The Great Bank Heist was released. The report looked into the looting that occurred at the bank and implicates more than 50 people who “gratuitously” received money from VBS.

On Saturday The ANC said it had written to its Integrity Commission referring to the report on the alleged multibillion-rand fraud at VBS Mutual Bank. The party said it expects to meet next week about the report and the cases of leaders and members implicated in or accused of wrongdoing.

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