EFF leaders have denied that VBS funds were channelled to the party.
The EFF has thrown Floyd Shivambu under the bus, saying that he must respond to allegations about his involvement in the VBS mutual bank corruption scandal.
In a written reply to questions by The Citizen, EFF spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said Shivambu has a case to answer to.
“Floyd Shivambu is the one who was sanctioned by parliament for not declaring proceeds of money from VBS and other benefactors.
“The president of the EFF was cleared by the very same parliament on the very same matter.
“If there was any corruption in the EFF, he (Shivambu) is best placed to know it, as the only person to have ever been found guilty of corruption/misconduct is him,” Thambo said.
EFF leaders embroiled in VBS scandal
In 2023, parliament’s ethics committee found that Shivambu had failed to disclose R180 000 that he had received from a company linked to VBS.
The company, Sgameka Projects, was owned by his brother.
There were reports that senior EFF leaders were beneficiaries of the looting that collapsed VBS Mutual Bank in 2018, but the party has always denied this.
Shivambu’s claims
The EFF’s latest attacks on the former deputy president come after Shivambu told the SABC that the EFF cannot be trusted as a governing party.
“The EFF is not an alternative to the crisis of South Africa, if anything it will deepen the crisis of South Africa because it is directionless and secondly it has adopted the habits and mannerisms of the ANC.
“If you check the conduct of its deployees in government it is not dissimilar to what the ANC deployees do,” he said.
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Rogue public representatives
Shivambu said he had dealt with many complaints about EFF public representatives when he was in charge of governance in the EFF.
“A lot of complaints would be brought about the conduct of those that are deployed in government and whenever we try to intervene there will be an organisational resolution to protect wrongdoing,” he said.
Did Shivambu try to root out corruption in the EFF?
He said he had the will to deal with corruption in the party but he could not do it on his own.
“I will never impose my personal views and perspectives on the collective, even when you know that this is not consistent with your personal beliefs and values, I have always subjected myself to the collective views and I always teach about and preach democratic centralism because I believe it holds organisations together,” he said.
Shivambu said he noticed rogue behaviour inside the EFF after the 2021 local government elections when the EFF entered into coalition agreements in some municipalities. He said the EFF leaders would have meetings with their deployees in government regularly to hold them accountable, but this was later stopped.
“A different mandate of self-enrichment was imposed on those who are deployed in government. That is why that when some of us started to pull back and say this is not what we founded the EFF for…we would never associate with such type of politics,” he said.
Shivambu said these are some of the reasons that he had decided to join the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.
The formation of Afrika Mayibuye Movement
Shivambu had a short stint as the secretary general of the MK party which he has also accused of having some underhanded dealings. He is now the president of his own party.
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