EFF set to be grilled by media over VBS
The EFF will on Tuesday be pressed on allegations that money from VBS Mutual Bank made its way into the coffers of SA’s third-biggest party.
EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu’s younger brother Brian is said in a report compiled by advocate Terry Motau and Werksmans Attorneys, on the instruction of the Prudential Authority, to have benefited to the tune of R16m.
Brian Shivambu has denied this, while Floyd Shivambu has said he did not receive money from any VBS accounts into his personal bank account.
The Daily Maverick last week reported that, according to three sources, the EFF had allegedly received R1.3m “illegally flowing” from VBS into the party’s bank account.
It also reported that Brian Shivambu had allegedly funnelled about R10m through his company into his brother Floyd’s personal bank account.
In an interview with eNCA at the weekend, Floyd Shivambu said if the EFF had received any money from VBS, that would be addressed at a media conference on Tuesday, scheduled to take place at the party’s headquarters in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
Meanwhile, the inquiry into the SA Revenue Service (Sars), chaired by retired judge Robert Nugent, will continue for the whole of this week in Pretoria.
Nugent submitted his interim report to President Cyril Ramaphosa at the end of September on the hearing, which was tasked with looking into governance and administrative problems at Sars.
Evidence given at the commission so far has suggested that changes made at Sars under now suspended commissioner Tom Moyane weakened a once world-class tax agency, resulting in revenue shortfalls that eventually contributed to SA raising VAT for the first time in 25 years.
Among some of the most crucial testimonies expected on Monday will be from Intikhab Shaik, Sars group executive for business solutions, and Sue Burger, Sars executive for programme management.
Recently appointed Sars CFO Johnstone Makhubu will testify before Nugent on Wednesday. Barry Hore, former Sars COO, will appear on Thursday, while acting Sars commissioner Mark Kingon, who was appointed after Moyane was suspended, will appear on Friday.
Embattled Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama will lodge an application in the Labour Court on Tuesday to try to stop the board of the state-owned entity from terminating his contract.
National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete and a multiparty delegation of seven MPs will this week participate in the 139th assembly and related meetings of the InterParliamentary Union in Geneva, Switzerland, along with parliamentarians from about 130 countries.
The National Council of Provinces’s ad hoc committee probing the intervention in the North West provincial government in terms of section 100 of the constitution is scheduled to embark on oversight visits from Monday to Friday to determine the status of the intervention.