“Please come fetch your crooks” - Samwu

The VBS saga at the Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) took another turn last Friday, when hundreds of workers marched to protest against the presence of Mayor Florence Radzilani at the municipality.

This was a case of the ANC marching against the ANC, when hundreds of residents comprised of Vhembe workers under the umbrella of the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) - alliance partners of the ANC - pastors and traditional healers, among others, took to the streets of Thohoyandou.

The march, organised by Samwu, saw stakeholders who were singing freedom songs and anti-Radzilani songs march from the VDM offices through the streets of Thohoyandou to the regional offices of the ANC, where they handed over a memorandum of their demands to the regional leadership of the ANC.

The stakeholders were in unison to say, “that the ANC should remove their crooks from the municipality”.

The march follows the release of the VBS forensic report, named the Great Bank Heist, which implicated many political leaders, traditional leaders and other identified individuals in the looting of VBS funds amounting to close to R2 billion.

In Vhembe, the name of Mayor Florence Radzilani is very prominent among those implicated. Last week, the municipality put two officials, Municipal Manager Reuben Rambado and Chief Financial Officer Nyiko Mchavi on precautionary suspension, but the mayor was spared.

This made the workers very angry and they have since been camping at the municipality's head office in Thohoyandou. Pressure has been mounting for the removal of the mayor to give way for an investigation.

In handing over the memorandum, Mr Timmy Tshililo of Samwu said it should not be the ANC marching against itself but that they were marching against individual crooks in the ANC, who included the mayor and some members of her executive council. He said they were not happy about the way the ANC in Vhembe was treating the VBS saga.

"We are here to demand from our own organization, the ANC, to take immediate remedial action against the perpetrators of the demise of the VBS bank, where close to R2 billion was looted.”

 He added that their demands were that the municipality manager, chief financial officer and general manager technical services be suspended immediately. “That the mayor, the Speaker, members of the mayoral committee of finance and technical services be fired, redeployed or resign for their involvement in the VBS saga," said Tshililo.

The workers also demanded that the ANC talk directly to VBS workers who lost their jobs, out of solidarity and towards saving their jobs.

"We further demand the immediate reinstatement of all the 319 workers, the expediting of the placement process that the workers are placed in the positions they are serving in within seven days or we will shut down Vhembe completely," said Tshililo.

Date:01 November 2018

By: Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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