JOHANNESBURG - Law enforcement agencies should move quickly to bring the fraudsters implicated in the saga of the failed VBS Mutual Bank to account, the South African National Civic Organisation urged on Wednesday.
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) placed VBS under curatorship in March, and a report entitled "The Great Bank Heist" released by the central bank last week said some 50 people gratuitously received R1.894 billion from the Limpopo-based institution over a three-year period starting in March 2015.
Sanco said swift action was needed to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system "which was seemingly captured by corrupt forces in the not so distant past".
“Futile attempts at reputation management and diversion by the (opposition) Economic Freedom Fighters and some of those fingered in the report will not make serious allegations levelled against them in the South African Reserve Bank Report to simply disappear,” Sanco national spokesperson Jabu Mahlangu said.
EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu has dismissed as "weapons of mass deception", charges that he received R10 million in the VBS scandal.
Mahlangu commended the ruling African National Congress (ANC) which has pledged to take drastic steps against any of its members who are implicated.
"No one should be spared of the consequences of defrauding the bank as well as state institutions of their investments including burial societies and investors of their life savings," he said.
Mahlangu dismissed as baseless, the main opposition Democratic Alliance's suggestion that President Cyril Ramaphosa knew of the ongoing looting at VBS while he was deputy to former president Jacob Zuma, but did nothing.
Ramaphosa himself has rejected the DA allegations as "baseless and unsubstantiated".