Limpopo suspends provincial secretary

The VBS Mutual Bank saga claims another victim.

The suspension of SA Communist Party (SACP) provincial secretary in Limpopo Gilbert Kganyago amid allegations the party had received R3 million from VBS Mutual Bank, proved beyond any shadow of doubt the leadership of the SACP was hypocritical, dishonest and not trustworthy.

This was the view of political analyst Lesiba Tefo yesterday after allegations the SACP received the money in order to bankroll its national congress.

Tefo said the new claims proved beyond any shadow of doubt that SACP was “all talk but no action” about fighting corruption in Mzansi.

“The SACP took a serious knock with this [allegation]. This suggests they always knew about this arrangement but chose to keep mum about it because they knew they were conflicted,” he said.

The Reserve Bank’s report, The Great Bank Heist by Advocate Terry Motau, linked Kganyago and 52 other people or companies to losses at VBS caused by mismanagement and fraud amounting to R1.8 billion.

Former VBS chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi had claimed that the SACP was among many political parties that benefitted from illicit money that eventually collapsed the bank.

The party claimed Kganyago was suspended after proof was provided that he was the political head of the institution when the municipality wrongly invested public funds with VBS without following the prescripts of law, such as the Municipal Finance Management Act, which forbade municipalities from investing in a mutual bank.

SACP provincial spokesperson Machike Thobejane confirmed Kganyago’s suspension.

“Kganyago was the face of the SACP in the province. We felt his tainted image linked with the VBS scandal would not do any good to the party.

“We are saying the municipality wrongly invested the money into VBS under his watch. That is why we suspended him with immediate effect in an effort to allow investigations to run without any hassle,” said Thobejane.

He said the party’s second deputy secretary, Goodman Mtileni, would fill the post in an acting capacity, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Kganyago’s suspension comes barely a week after the national leadership of the SACP defended him as an innocent leader.

Kganyago was the face of the SACP in the province. We felt his tainted image would not do any good to the party Machike Thobejane SACP spokesperson