SACP calls for action on VBS looting

11 October 2018

The South African Communist Party has noted “The Great Bank Heist”, a report released this week into the looting of VBS Mutual Bank. The SACP strongly condemns the looting and the corruption of corporate-capture of the state that facilitated the wanton theft of tax payers’ resources and working class funds.

The SACP is calling for action on the structural failure of the prudential system managed by the South African Reserve Bank. The looting would not have occurred such a long time without systemic detection and early intervention to stop it as well as hold those involved to account.

Similarly, the auditing and legal professional bodies must take decisive action to restore the integrity of the professions. There are attorneys and accountants who were involved in mediating the “the great bank heist”.

Decisive action must also be taken against implicated auditing firms such as the KPMG and those who were involved in the auditing of the finances of the municipalities that “invested” with VBS Mutual Bank against the law.    

The SACP fully agrees with the recommendations made in the report:

244  …the Prudential Authority [i.e. the South African Reserve Bank must] disclose to the curator such parts of the report that it deems appropriate to enable the curator to:

244.1 seek the grant of final orders of sequestration against those who have already been provisionally sequestrated on the application of the curator;

244.2 institute further proceedings for civil recoveries, including sequestration and winding-up proceedings, against those who have benefitted from the thefts and frauds;

244.3 seek the intervention of the Asset Forfeiture Unit to preserve and confiscate the proceeds of the crimes that have been committed; and

245  …further that an auditor's liability claim be instituted by the Prudential Authority, the curator and National Treasury against KPMG for recovery of their respective damages.

246 …urgent steps be taken to wind-up VBS. It seems clear to me that there is no prospect of saving VBS. It is corrupt and rotten to the core. Indeed, there is hardly a person in its employ in any position of authority who is not, in some way or other, complicit. 

247 Finally, as has been noted repeatedly in this report, many of those implicated in the looting of BVS are chartered accountants and some are attorneys. They are not fit and proper persons to fill those offices, which require utmost honesty and integrity… the Prudential Authority refers complaints about these persons to the relevant professional bodies having jurisdiction so that steps can be taken to strip them of their status.  

Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, National Spokesperson & Head of Communications, SACP, 11 October 2018