An oversized suitcase stuffed with R5-million was flown to Johannesburg in a helicopter and handed to a Public Investment Corporation executive as a bribe from VBS, according to an affidavit by the broke bank’s former head of treasury.
In the affidavit, Phophi Mukhodobwane says he received R10-million for his part in defrauding VBS of just more than R1.5-billion, and spent R6.5-million of his windfall on a Ferrari.
Mukhodobwane told VBS curator Anoosh Rooplal he delivered the R5-million to Tshifhiwa Matodzi, chairman of VBS holding company Vele Investments, who told him it was for a senior PIC executive “so that we could receive swift support with regard to bank funding ... [what] was needed”.
The affidavit lays bare the full extent of the deception and trickery that led to a liquidity crisis at VBS, including how executives at rail agency Prasa received bribes to invest R1-billion with VBS and how middlemen were paid to convince municipalities to invest funds with the bank.
Read the full story in the Sunday Times.
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