Johannesburg - The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) on Friday begins disciplinary action against two members implicated in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank.
VBS Mutual Bank has all but virtually collapsed after its senior executives allegedly used it as a Ponzi scheme to enrich themselves and their immediate associates at the expense of municipalities and ordinary depositors.
SAICA said that former VBS chief executive Andile Ramavhunga and Tshifhiwa Matodzi, the former chairperson of the bank's majority shareholding company, Vele Investments, will face the disciplinary committee on Friday.
Ramavhunga and Matodzi were fingered as some of the ringleaders in advocate Terry Motau's "The Great Bank Heist" report and are accused of having benefited from "widescale looting and pillaging" nearly R2 billion from the money deposited in the bank.
However, Ramavhunga and Matodzi have denied any wrongdoing.
SAICA said its disciplinary committee will consider the application of its by-law in light of the provisional sequestration order against Ramavhunga and Matodzi.
The two were provisionally sequestrated in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg in August after a successful application by VBS curator Anoosh Rooplal.
Ramavhunga insists the R15 million he received from Vele's banking accounts at VBS was payment for consultancy services that he claims he rendered. The court found that his claim was false and a lie, and that the proceeds were from probable fraud.
Matodzi was also sequestrated and had his Vele Investments liquidated after curators alleged that the company unlawfully earned R745 million from the alleged fraud, said to have been carried out by bank executives.
SAICA said that while Ramavhunga's and Matodzi's disciplinary hearing was open to the public, documents which form part of the hearing remain confidential and the public will not be allowed to access them.