Six years later, many communities in Limpopo’s rural regions, particularly in the Vhembe district, are still sobbing in tears after VBS Mutual Bank looted their life savings.
The VBS mutual bank was placed in liquidation in 2018 by the North Gauteng High Court after being deemed insolvent and bankrupt by the prudential authority.
The culprits of the money looting at VBS allegedly defrauded bank depositors of approximately R2 billion.
Advocate Motobi, one of the VBS bank depositors/users who lost his life savings to the bank, had hoped to put his children through school with his savings and live a better life.
Motobi said the heist shattered his dreams, as well as those of his ten children, and tarnished his reputation in the community.
“I’ve done some investment and thinking that I’ll take my kids up then they’ll go for schooling and all this unfortunately due to VBS issues they couldn’t the other two boys are not at school just fortunate at least the last girl is in varsity now through Nsfas.
“To me, it has done a serious damage because it even killed my hope,” he said.
The VBS scandal implicates many high-profile individuals and political parties. A recent affidavit that emerged online contained assertions involving many notable people and political parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and its leaders Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu.
The affidavit contained the guilty plea witness testimony of former VBS chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi, who was recently sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to 33 counts of corruption, theft, fraud, and money laundering.
Advocate Motobi has given up hope of ever receiving his money back, as he believes that the government is not taking the matter seriously. He further calls for justice to be served to all those implicated in the VBS scandal.
“The only hope that I have is to get peace in my mind. With money, I don’t think we will get them [it] but if the government is so serious about it and follows it up, then it will be better, and then we get paid back,” he said. Motobi added, “All I need is justice to be done.”
