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Julius Malema, chief of South Africa’s radical Financial Freedom Fighters, is dealing with new accusations of corruption that would trigger additional political turmoil following the election that led to a coalition authorities between the African Nationwide Congress and the liberal Democratic Alliance.
The allegations come from Tshifhiwa Matodzi, former chair of VBS Mutual Financial institution, which collapsed in 2018.
Accusations that Malema and his deputy Floyd Shivambu benefited from R2bn ($110mn) stolen from the financial institution first emerged six years in the past, when a report from the nation’s central financial institution concluded that R16.1mn of the stolen cash went to Shivambu’s youthful brother Brian.
Subsequent experiences by the Every day Maverick mentioned Malema used this cash, diverted by entrance firms, to purchase designer put on at Gucci, fund lavish events and pay for his son’s faculty charges at a high-end Johannesburg non-public faculty.
The newest proof from Matodzi — who was discovered responsible this week on 33 counts of corruption, fraud, cash laundering and racketeering, and confessed as a part of a plea deal “to rectify my wrongdoing” and cut back his 495-year jail sentence to fifteen years — incorporates new particulars about alleged corruption.
Matodzi supplied a 263-page affidavit to the Pretoria Excessive Court docket by which he detailed how VBS paid dozens of bribes to authorities officers to persuade them to position municipal funds with the financial institution. Others implicated embody auditors KPMG, whose banking associate on the time Sipho Malaba is already dealing with prison expenses on this case.
However it’s Matodzi’s admissions regarding Malema, the 43-year-old firebrand who was suspended from the African Nationwide Congress in 2012, that threaten to trigger the biggest fallout in South Africa’s fragile politics. In Might, the ANC misplaced its majority for the primary time for the reason that finish of apartheid and shaped a unity authorities.
Malema’s EFF, which noticed its help slip to 9.5 per cent within the election, refused to kind a part of the unity authorities.
In his affidavit, Matodzi described how he met Malema and Shivambu at a penthouse in Sandton in April 2017. On the time, Malema had been publicly criticising VBS for lending cash to former president Jacob Zuma to improve his home. Matodzi mentioned this “was damaging VBS’s popularity”.
Ostensibly to purchase the EFF’s silence, Matodzi mentioned he supplied to donate R5mn instantly to the EFF and observe that with R1mn each month thereafter. The primary cost was made on June 8 2017 into the account of an organization named Sgameka, owned by Shivambu’s brother, Brian.
“Myself, Julius and Floyd understood that idea of ‘donation’ to imply gratification, therefore Floyd and Julius didn’t present me with [the] EFF’s personal banking particulars for these donations,” he mentioned.
This week, Malema mentioned there was nothing new within the allegations, with the EFF’s response contained within the “archives”. He and Shivambu have lengthy maintained they did nothing improper, urging accusers to “open a case”.
Sithembile Mbete, a political scientist on the College of Pretoria, mentioned these allegations had been much more critical than those Malema and his social gathering had confronted up to now, although they’d not essentially trigger nice political injury.
“Up to now, the EFF has been in a position to ignore this, or declare they had been being focused by the media. This shall be far more durable to disregard. However politically, I’m undecided this alone will damage it,” she mentioned.
“The spectre of corruption allegations was not the first purpose why the EFF misplaced help within the final election. And the reality is, we now have no scarcity of corrupt politicians.”
If both Malema or Shivambu had been indicted, the political injury could be extra extreme, she mentioned.
The social gathering itself will this week have fun its eleventh anniversary.
ActionSA, a celebration run by businessman Herman Mashaba, mentioned it will write to the police to demand an pressing investigation into Malema and Shivambu. The claims illustrate the “unethical character of those two EFF leaders”, it mentioned.
“From the start when Malema was nonetheless within the ANC, his life-style didn’t match his revenue, and no one did something about it. If we permit this, it’ll solely perpetuate the view that each politician is corrupt to the core, which should change,” Mashaba advised the Monetary Instances.
The Democratic Alliance’s Baxolile Nodada mentioned his social gathering laid a grievance with the police six years in the past in opposition to Malema. “This brazen theft left in its wake a path of destruction as senior residents misplaced their pensions and financial institution purchasers their financial savings,” he mentioned. This case “has important bearing on the credibility of parliament”.
