Parliament to visit Limpopo VBS investors

PARLIAMENT’s committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs will, over the next two days, visit municipalities in Limpopo to ascertain the state of service delivery, focusing on those who invested in the failed VBS bank.

The SA Reserve Bank placed VBS under curatorship last year, and released a report showing that about 50 people gratuitously received R1.894 billion from the Limpopo-based institution over three years from March 2015.

The Parliament committee said the objective of its tour of Limpopo was to “ascertain the impact of the investments on those municipalities, amounts invested, amounts recovered and what consequence management actions have been taken against relevant officials involved, and the impact on the municipalities’ capacity to deliver services”.

It said it would interact with Limpopo MEC for co-operative governance, human settlements and traditional affairs, Basikopo Makamu, for an overview of the state of municipalities and service delivery in the entire province.

Entities targeted in the visit include Mopani district, the Greater Giyani local municipality, Vhembe District, as well as the Makhado and Collins Chabane local municipalities.

While it has already been a year since the SARB released its damning report titled “The Great Bank Heist”, which detailed vast maladministration at VBS Bank, the man who compiled the report, advocate Terry Motau SC, has stuck by his views regardless of threats of legal action by those implicated in the report.

The committee will today also hold a public meeting with traditional leaders, ward councillors, civic organisations and ratepayers’ associations in Thohoyandou to get first-hand experiences of the impact of the investments on overall services.