The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) today
said that its disciplinary committee had ordered the membership
cancellation of former VBS Mutual Bank chairperson, Tshifhiwa Matodzi.
SAICA also said that the partly-heard sequestration matter of
Matodzi’s right-hand man, former VBS chief executive Andile Ramavhunga,
would proceed in April. The date was still to be confirmed.
Ramavhunga and Matodzi were fingered as some of the ringleaders in
advocate Terry Motau’s “The
Great Bank Heist” report last year. They are
accused of having benefited from “wide-scale looting and pillaging” of
nearly R2 billion from deposits at the bank.
VBS collapsed and was liquidated 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.
Ramavhunga and Matodzi were brought before the SAICA disciplinary committee late last year to answer to the allegations.
Both were provisionally sequestrated in the South Gauteng High Court
in Johannesburg in August after a successful application by VBS curator,
Anoosh Rooplal.
Matodzi was sequestrated and had his company, 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.
Ramavhunga insisted that the R15 million he received from Vele’s
banking accounts at VBS was payment for consultancy services rendered.
But the court found that his claim was false, and that the proceeds were
from probable fraud.
Both Matodzi and Ramavhunga have denied any wrongdoing.