VBS legacy could bite ANC in polls
Villagers in Limpopo angry at politicians’ role in bank scandal
● The ANC will have to dig deep to retain voter support in Tshivhilidulu village in Limpopo, where residents have been hard hit by the VBS Mutual Bank scandal.
Only one house in the village has piped water — installed at the expense of the owner, Tshililo Mudau — because the local Vhembe district municipality lost more than R300m it deposited with VBS, which collapsed in 2018.
The money was earmarked for water infrastructure, among other things, and a project to provide running water for Tshivhilidulu ground to a halt.
Now residents fetch water from Mudau, who was able to find the money to connect a water pipe to a nearby reservoir.
Acting against Treasury rules, municipalities across Limpopo, North West and Gauteng deposited more than R2bn with VBS, leaving ratepayers without crucial services when the bank collapsed. Local politicians and officials were given generous inducements to channel deposits to VBS.
ANC Limpopo treasurer Danny Msiza is facing charges of corruption for allegedly helping to facilitate the unlawful deposits with the help of businessman Kabelo Matsepe, who is also facing charges. They have pleaded not guilty.
Vhembe district mayor Florence Radzilani was axed, while her municipal manager and CFO were suspended.
Action was also taken against officials at local municipalities within the Vhembe district. In Collins Chabane municipality the municipal manager has been charged for allegedly receiving gifts such as a Range Rover Velar worth more than R1m and a R28,500 Tag Heuer watch in exchange for making a R120m deposit with VBS.
And it’s not just ANC politicians who are under a cloud. Investigations by Daily Maverick and the Sunday Times have shown that VBS money found its way to the leadership of the EFF.
EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu received more than R1m and his brother, Brian, must repay a loan of more than R4m he received from VBS parent company Vele Investments.
About R500,000 of VBS money ended up with Santaclara Trading, a company linked to EFF leader Julius Malema. The EFF leaders have denied any wrongdoing.
The prosecutions that are being brought are cold comfort for those who line up at Mudau’s tap.
“I don’t make them pay because they don’t have money,” she said. “I got myself money for the pipes so they can also get water. There are no jobs here. I saved up a bit of money from a local internship I got recently and managed to buy pipes.”
Until a month ago, Mudau was also fetching water from a stream running down a nearby mountain.
“I am going to vote in the elections but definitely not for the ANC. I’m going to vote for a councillor from right here in Tshivhilidulu who will deliver services,” she said.
The stolen R300m should also have been spent on services such as electricity, housing and health care in the region, and its loss is felt daily by villagers.
“Why should I vote for criminals? They ruined my life,” said a 52-year-old woman who sells mopani worms, or masonja.
The woman, a mother of four who asked not to be named, is one of hundreds of people who lost the savings they had deposited with VBS. She said neither the ANC nor the EFF would get her vote on November 1.
“Why should I vote when my money was stolen? Vote for what, when I have been made poor by these people and have nothing to my name? I can consider voting for these independent candidates. Not these criminals; they are all criminals,” she said.
“I had personally invested R559,000. I started a long time ago but the R559,000 was in my account in 2018. I used to save from selling this very same masonja.”
She received R100,000 of her savings back from the bank’s liquidators.
“I am so defeated, I don’t have any money and I have four kids who were supposed to have been taken to school using that money.
“When it got stolen I did not even have stock, I struggled a lot until I got lucky and got a bit of money which I used to go to Botswana for masonja, but I could not get enough because I had very little money because my money was at VBS.”
The woman lives in Mulenzhe, near Thohoyandou, which also has no services due to the VBS skulduggery.
“Where I live there is nothing, there is no water, not even for the toilets. There is absolutely no services at all,” she said.
In Tshivhilidulu, Tshavhungwa Mudau, 73, has been without electricity and water for more than seven years.
“We don’t have water. I have to get drinking water from the stream by the mountain but if you don’t go early in the morning, around 5am, you won’t get any water,” she said.
Community leader Richard Ramabulana said: “We feel it’s high time now that these culprits must be voted out. We are tired of these people.”
Solomon Baloyi, from Nandoni, said he has decided to stand as an independent candidate in the elections to try to do something about the water problem.
He said water was available in the Nandoni Dam on the outskirts of Thohoyandou but “the people implementing that project are failing to deliver water to the residents. And they are failing while the dam is full and the purification plant is purifying water day and night.”
We don’t have water. I have to get drinking water from the stream by the mountain but if you don’t go early in the morning, around 5am, you won’t get any water
Tshavhungwa Mudau, above