The Black Business Council (BBC) has characterised as “intimidation” the backlash that followed weekend reports that cash-strapped Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) plans to invest over a billion rand in Venda Building Society (VBS) Bank.

“The BBC has noted with dismay what seems to be an intimidation to the Prasa decision makers not to conduct normal and legitimate business with a truly black-empowered and -run financial institution.

“The BBC is aware of this trend by some who are against transformation to influence decisions their way and retard the growth of black owned businesses. This is done in order to negatively influence those who are supposed to make these important decisions in the name of reputational risk management,” said Kganki Matabane, the BBC chief executive.

Matabane said his organisation failed “to understand why a great newspaper like the Sunday Times could publish an article claiming that VBS does not qualify to offer financial services to Prasa while VBS fully qualifies as a registered bank as defined by section 7 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA)”.

“All this confirms that there are some powerful sections of the community who do not want to see blacks owning a bank and further more, thriving in the financial services sector, which still remains predominantly untransformed,” Matabane said.

He said the BBC would continue to call for an establishment of a black-owned and black-run commercial bank and the support by both business and government, and described VBS as “the current truly empowered bank”.

“BBC is calling on the leadership of Prasa not to be intimidated by noises that are working against the advancement of black people who are the majority in the country,” he concluded.

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