AG says only R107 million has been recovered from VBS Bank

JOHANNESBURG - The Auditor General (AG) said it identified financial losses amounting to R1.6 billion from municipalities that invested with the now defunct Venda Building Society (VBS) Bank.

VBS Bank was officially defunct in 2018 following massive looting and maladministration.

Prior to the bank going bust, several municipalities in Limpopo invested public money into it, despite a notice from National Treasury not to.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Pretoria on Thursday, Auditor General Tsakani Maluleke said her office had issued 13 material irregularity notices regarding investments made to the bank.

“The money that was recovered is still quite little. At the last count, municipalities where we had raised this MI [Material Irregularity], municipalities that had lost R1.6 billion, they had recovered R107 million, merely 7% of what they would have lost, which is a real tragedy because this is money that should have gone into fixing and building infrastructure so that citizens could enjoy service delivery.”