BOSA's Maimane wants Simelane to be instructed to make personal statement in Parly over loan linked to VBS

CAPE TOWN - BOSA leader Mmusi Maimane wants Justice Minister Thembi Simelane to be instructed to make a personal statement in Parliament on a controversial loan arrangement linked to the liquidated VBS Mutual Bank.

Simelane has already appeared before Parliament's justice committee to explain the saga.

But Maimane said there were too many inconsistencies in Simelane’s story and Parliament and the public deserved an explanation.

Maimane said that recent revelations suggested that Simelane's explanations about a dubious loan to buy a coffee shop raised concerns on several fronts. 

He said that her financial dealings with a broker, Gundo Wealth Solutions, suggested that she may have personally benefited, and failed to declare it. 

Maimane said that Simelane's refusal to make the loan agreement public to support her public statements on the matter suggested that she could be misleading Parliament. 

He's now written to the National Assembly Speaker asking her to refer the matter to Parliament's rules committee to invoke a House rule which makes provision for an MP to explain matters of a personal nature. 

This statement may not be debated. 

BOSA spokesperson, Roger Solomon: "As both a minister and a member of Parliament, Simelane is accountable first to Parliament and not to her party’s internal processes and so-called integrity commissions." 

Other political parties have already referred Simelane to both Parliament's ethics and its powers and privileges committees for investigation.