VBS curator aims to secure assets
• Court application for liquidation of alleged frauds
The Reserve Bank and the curator of VBS Mutual Bank are expected to announce on Monday that the Limpopobased bank cannot be saved. The Reserve Bank will also present a plan outlining how some of the victims of the alleged fraud and corruption that has felled VBS can access part of their deposits.
The Reserve Bank and the curator of VBS Mutual Bank are expected to announce on Monday that the Limpopo-based bank cannot be saved.
The Bank will also present a plan outlining how some of the victims of the alleged fraud and corruption that has felled VBS can access part of their deposits.
Last week the Bank doubled the guaranteed payout of funds deposited by individual account holders from R50,000 to a maximum of R100,000.
The monies will be paid through a guarantee procured from the Treasury.
This comes as the curator of the bank filed an urgent court application for the liquidation of the alleged masterminds of the fraud, including largest shareholder Vele Investments.
On Friday VBS curator Anoosh Rooplal, of accounting firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo, filed papers at the High Court in Johannesburg, asking that the court wind up Vele and also sequestrate the estates of the directors of VBS and some of its senior employees.
The mutual bank “fell prey to a fraudulent scheme of epic proportion”, which resulted in it losing at least R1.5bn, Rooplal said in the court application. VBS’s retail deposit book amounted to R336m. The bulk of the funds belonged to municipalities.
Rooplal wants to secure assets held by Vele and those of VBS chairman Tshifhiwa Matodzi, CE Andile Ramavhunga, chief financial officer Philippus Truter, head of treasury Phophi Mukhodobwane and former chief operating officer Robert Madzonga.
“More egregious than the perpetration of a fraudulent scheme of such enormity, is that … [it] was orchestrated by the highest ranking officials at VBS,” said Rooplal in his affidavit.
It was just and equitable to wind up Vele “due to the fraud it, together with its controlling minds, and others perpetrated on VBS, its depositors and local municipalities”, he added.
Rooplal said Matodzi, who was also the chairman of 53% owner Vele, masterminded the fraudulent scheme, which created fictitious electronic deposits into the operating technology of VBS and then paid out real cash to entities linked to Vele and the individuals named.
The victims, according to Rooplal, are clients of the bank, predominantly members of the Venda community in which VBS started in 1982 as the Venda Building Society, championed by the Bantustan government, as well as municipalities and the Public Investment Corporation, which is a 25% shareholder and had also advanced loans to VBS.
Vele used these fictitious entries to increase its stake in VBS, as well as building up its other businesses to more than R1.5bn, Rooplal says.
The curator has asked the court to enrol the case for an urgent hearing on July 24.
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