WATCH | Malema says he did not understand VBS Bank 'donations' to be bribes

EFF leader Julius Malema says he was not aware the donation then VBS Mutual Bank chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi offered to the party was a bribe.

Matodzi claimed in an affidavit that the EFF was paid a R5m lump sum and R1m monthly “donations” in 2017 to clean up the bank’s bad reputation after giving then president Jacob Zuma a loan for his Nkandla home.

Malema argued that when Matodzi offered the red berets the donation, he did not understand it to be a bribe.

“The guy [Matodzi] said in his own sponsored affidavit that he offered to donate to the EFF; he didn’t say the EFF came to ask him for money. So, since when is a person donating to the EFF a crime? Then he said in the same paragraph, ‘they knew when I donated R5m [it was a gratification]’,” Malema said in an interview with SABC.

“He [Matodzi] doesn’t claim to have met me before; he said the same day they met me, he was going to make a donation, and I understood that. How do I understand that to mean a bribe?”

Malema said they never received money from Matodzi as they never had a VBS Mutual Bank account. “There was a condition, according to him [Matodzi]: ‘Open a VBS Mutual Bank account, therefore [sic] you’ll get the money.’ We never opened a VBS Mutual Bank account. The EFF does not have a VBS Mutual Bank account. The EFF has never received the VBS Mutual Bank money,” he said.

Malema said ANC members who were implicated in the looting of the bank did not receive the same scrutiny as the EFF. The implicated ANC members include then treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, who allegedly requested R2m from the bank to pay an ANC supplier. Former mayor of Vhembe Florence Radzilani was also implicated for allegedly wanting “Christmas” money.

“Some people say, ‘VBS Mutual Bank, VBS Mutual Bank’ to me, but they are sitting next to a mayor who deposited money into VBS Mutual Bank. They say they can't work with the EFF because it’s corrupt, but they work with the ANC, which has a minister who is charged, a speaker who is charged, and mayors and provincial leaders who deposited into VBS Mutual Bank.

“[Former Limpopo premier] Stan Mathabatha was the ANC chairperson when the VBS Mutual Bank looting was taking place. What happened now? He got a promotion. He’s a deputy minister of land reform and rural development. Yet people say they can’t work with those who work[ed] with VBS Mutual Bank.”

Malema said the accusations were used as a “swear word” to attack the party.

“VBS Mutual Bank to us is a swear word. When they want to swear at us, they say VBS Mutual Bank. So they don't mean it; they don’t genuinely mean it.”

In his affidavit Matodzi claimed donations to the EFF were allegedly funnelled through a company owned by Brian Shivambu, the brother of the party’s deputy president Floyd Shivambu.

“Myself, Julius, and Floyd understood that the concept of donation to mean gratification, hence Floyd and Julius did not provide me with the EFF’s own banking details for these ‘donations’,” Matodzi’s statement read.

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