VBS closure to speed up criminal cases
The winding down of VBS Mutual Bank will allow criminal and civil proceedings against those responsible for its demise to pick up pace, and significantly, will allow for the recovery of money from those who looted or owed the bank.
The winding up of VBS Mutual Bank will allow for criminal and civil proceedings against those responsible for its demise to pick up pace.
Significantly, it will facilitate recovery of money from those who looted or owed the bank.
The high court in Pretoria on Tuesday granted an order for the liquidation of VBS after an application by the Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority was unopposed by respondents, which included the bank and the minister of finance.
Prudential Authority CEO Kuben Naidoo said on Tuesday that the court order basically provided approval for final liquidation and the appointment of the present curator, Anoosh Rooplal, as liquidator. “It gives us more power to recover money from those that stole it or owe the bank,” Naidoo said.
In his application to the court, filed at the end of October, Naidoo argued VBS had to be wound up urgently and a liquidator appointed ‘‘so that the necessary civil and criminal proceedings can be pursued to hold those accountable for the demise of VBS and so as to achieve as great as possible recovery for the creditors”.
The VBS matter has been highly charged politically since the release of the investigative report by advocate Terry Motau, which spelt out the looting of the bank to the tune of R2bn. Senior members of the ANC in Limpopo, as well as members of the EFF, were implicated in the report, as having benefited from the ‘‘bank heist’’.
The matter has been referred to the NPA for civil or criminal action against those implicated.
While the minister of finance, Tito Mboweni, was cited as a respondent in the application by the Prudential Authority, he did not oppose the winding up of the bank in court on Tuesday.
The ANC said in a statement after the order that it was ‘‘rather unfortunate’’ that the establishment of the VBS Bank ‘‘was undermined by individuals whose preoccupation was to line their own pockets at the expense of the poor”.
“We remain hopeful that despite the liquidation of the bank, depositors will find some kind of relief in the form of recovering their hardearned monies.”