EFF, Malema hit back at ‘gossiper’ DA MP’s VBS accusations

The Economic Freedom Fighters and their commander-in-chief (CIC), Julius Malema, have taken DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia to task for his accusations that Malema has links to VBS Mutual Bank.

Last week Cachalia took to Twitter alleging that the EFF CIC is a 47% shareholder of Dyambeu Investments, which is owned by Venda king Khosikhulu Toni Mphephu under Vele Investments, and that “the same Vele have looted R900 million from VBS bank”.

The tweet has since been deleted.

This Sunday both the EFF and Malema came out guns blazing. The EFF’s official account released a statement decrying reports that Malema is linked to Dyambeu Investments as ‘fake news’.

“The EFF CIC has been accused by agents of mass deception that he owns 47% of Dyambeu Investments linked to VBS Mutual Bank. One of these agents was the gullible DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia who made such allegations on the social media platform, specifically Twitter,” the statement reads.

“Upon a letter threatening to take legal action against his defamatory, false and deceptive allegations Ghaleb Cachalia withdrew his allegations which were posted as fact,” it said.

Both the EFF and Malema posted a copy of a letter on Twitter from Ghaleb Cachalia, in which the DA MP apologises for his tweet as he was unable to verify its accuracy through his ‘sources’.  Malema, for his part, has dismissed the apology with the tweet, “I have no time for gossipers”.

This is the second time this weekend the EFF has  accusations its members are linked with the VBS scandal. On Saturday, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu categorically denied that he had profited from VBS, saying he never received R10m from the embattled bank.

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.

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