JOHANNESBURG - Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Zweli Mkhize must instruct local councils to remove municipal managers and chief financial officers who “have plundered public money in the VBS heist”, the DA said yesterday.
The DA was unsurprised at the “rampant looting and large-scale corruption that has occurred at VBS Mutual Bank”, DA spokesperson Kevin Mileham said.
The DA would ask Mkhize to take firm steps to ensure that these municipalities’ corrupt officials did not get away with what was essentially theft from the public purse, he said.
“The minister must instruct local councils to remove municipal managers and chief financial officers who have plundered public money in the VBS heist. The initial chink in the bank’s dubious facade came about when the DA asked parliamentary questions about the illegal deposits made by municipalities in October 2016,” Mileham said.
The DA had already laid criminal charges against the municipal managers and chief financial officers in the affected municipalities, and would now seek to have the minister issue a directive to these municipalities to ensure internal disciplinary processes were initiated by the relevant municipal councils.
“This feeding frenzy at the VBS trough was empowered by a number of municipalities who illegally deposited funds with VBS in contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act,” he said.