ANC in Limpopo fires six mayors over VBS, another resigns

The ANC Provincial Executive Committee in Limpopo has made a decision to fire six mayors in the province, all of whom, have been accused of involvement in the alleged looting of VBS Bank, while a seventh, Florence Radzilani, the provincial deputy chairperson, has quit.

While four of the mayors actively participated in lobbying for municipalities to invest in the bank, three were implicated in the scandal despite not having campaigned for investment directly, eNCA reports.

Radzilani was one of two senior Limpopo ANC figures implicated in the VBS Bank scandal. Along with treasurer Danny Msiza, Radzilani was first reported to be facing the axe in November, when the provincial party structure was expected to implement the directives of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) that they be removed from their positions.

The party’s provincial executive committee (PEC) met on November 19 to discuss the fate of the pair.

Radzilani and Msiza are among the 53 bank shareholders, business people, politicians and traditional leaders implicated in Advocate Terry Motau’s “Great Bank Heist” report, and are accused of jointly syphoning off about R1.8 million from VBS Mutual Bank.

Msiza is accused in the report of advising municipalities to invest municipal funds into the bank.

A total of 15 from Limpopo, North West and Gauteng invested R1.5 billion into VBS.

The High Court in Pretoria granted an urgent order for the final liquidation of the fraud and corruption-marred VBS Bank on November 13.

Judge JW Louw took but a few minutes to grant the order, finally winding up VBS after an application by the SA Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority (PA) which said the bank was hopelessly insolvent and beset by massive fraud.

The application was not opposed. The PA recommended the appointment of Anoosh Rooplal as the bank’s liquidator.

(Additional reporting by Alex Matlala and Ilse de Lange)

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