VBS: A Dream Defrauded
Dewald van Rensburg
Oct 2020 · Penguin Random House South Africa
4,7star
6 reviewsreport
eBook
296
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn more
About this eBook
Originally the Venda Building Society, VBS Mutual Bank was a small, little-known lender in Limpopo before it rocketed from obscurity in 2016 by giving President Jacob Zuma a controversial home loan to repay the state for improvements to his Nkandla homestead. The bank was growing rapidly and sold itself as a fearless champion of black advancement. Its main shareholder, Vele Investments, was on a meteoric trajectory towards becoming a financial conglomerate worthy of national attention. When the bank abruptly went into curatorship in March 2018, no one had any reason to doubt that it was just another unfortunate corporate failure. Then the astonishing truth emerged: the collapse of VBS was due to an epic R2-billion fraud that had created Vele’s empire out of thin air and left the bank a hollow shell. VBS: A Dream Defrauded unravels the fraud, exploring how suspected mastermind Tshifhiwa Matodzi and his associates first took control of VBS, fed ANC patronage networks and operated under a nationalist mantle endorsed by Venda royalty. The book explains how the bank and its shareholder Vele were seemingly built into a multibillion-rand business, exposes the political machinations that guaranteed VBS up to R3.5 billion in unlawful funding from municipalities and other state institutions, and describes the free-for-all that ensued after the bank’s collapse, when all involved tried to cover their tracks. Written by one of the journalists who first broke the story, this book draws on interviews with VBS insiders and other role-players, as well as documents and detailed forensic evidence collected in the course of two years of investigations. This is a compelling account of a bank heist whose shockwaves continue to haunt the politicians, businessmen and traditional leaders who enabled it.
Ratings and reviews
4,7
6 reviews
Roeschen Munyai
- Flag inappropriate
05 December 2023
it covers the whole story but the journalistic writing style does not lend it self well to bringing out the emotions in a story. still a worthy read I just wish I felt more emotionally connected.
Sthembile Seja
- Flag inappropriate
28 October 2024
Informative bool, i will definitely buy
About the author
Dewald van Rensburg is an award-winning journalist with fourteen years’ experience in business, economic and investigative reporting, much of it at City Press. He originally broke the story of VBS’s defrauding alongside his colleague Sipho Masondo at City Press and was subsequently responsible for many exposés around the bank’s demise. His work on the bank’s collapse won him the coveted Sikuvile journalism awards for Investigation of the Year, Story of the Year and Journalist of the Year in 2019. Dewald currently works at the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and continues to focus on malfeasance in the private sector.
Rate this eBook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Centre instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
