ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Andile Lungisa has characterised the allegations against EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu as nothing but a “witch-hunt”.
Lungisa said this was a classical statement of degradation to a black young man.
“VBS chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi is a new version of Angelo Agrizzi. We won’t allow any attack against Africans from the colonial settler media based on innuendo,” he said.
Lungisa said there was nothing that attached Shivambu to the VBS saga.
“If you read the affidavit, nothing serious implicates Floyd or anybody else. A person who embarked on an expedition of consulting individuals it was the chair of VBS who has become a new version of Angelo Agrizzi.”
He said this was an old agenda used by politicians to permanently implicate Africans for things which had no standing in any court of law.
The former Youth League deputy president said the agenda was to dent their images in the court of public opinion led by what he called the “settle neo-colonial media”.
Lungisa’s statement comes after a leaked affidavit by the bank’s former CEO Tshifhiwa Matodzi, in which he claimed that Shivambu ordered him to make payments via Sgameka, a company owned by Brian Shivambu, a brother of Floyd Shivambu.
“The company was provided to me by Floyd to make payments that I promised to the EFF. I made this promise following the news which had broken in the media that VBS had granted former president Zuma a home loan for his Nkandla residence, negative publicity arose in the country. Particularly from those who were opposed to Zuma at the time. Among those was the EFF.
“The EFF had started a campaign of mentioning VBS in its political rallies through its president Julius Malema. As chairman of VBS I then decided that Malema and EFF should be approached for VBS to explain its position and how the loan was granted.
“Gogoro, which was VBS PR consultants, arranged a meeting for me to meet Julius at the EFF's penthouse in Sandton around April/May 2017. I went there alone. Present there was Julius Malema, Floyd Shivambu and Marshall Diamini,” the affidavit read.
However, Shivambu stuck to his 2018 statement in which he refutes that he ever received a R10 million payment from VBS whether in his personal capacity or otherwise.
At the time the news broke, the EFF’s second-in-command said the news was just a plot to distract the people from the real agenda.
“Ever since the VBS Heist Report was released, I see weapons of mass deception and propaganda machines hard at work to mislead our people with their fake news. For the record, I have never received R10 million from VBS or anyone in my personal account.
“Faceless sources reportedly from the South African Reserve Bank, who have ulterior motives, have been misleading journalists and radio presenters with their malicious narrative.
“I have no dealings with VBS and any attempt to link the EFF to the bank for cheap political points is a clear sign of desperation and soon enough people will see through it.
“The so-called well-placed sources in the SARB is a coward and a liar who misled journalists and can't even reveal their identity,” Shivambu said at the time.
The Star