By Thabo Monyela
POLOKWANE- The African National Congress (ANC) in Limpopo has unleashed the ‘thorny’ step-aside rule to the Sekhukhune regional chairperson and district executive mayor from her responsibilities both in the party and in government over R190 million charges of corruption, money laundering in the VBS bank scandal heist.
Julia Mathebe was arrested by the hawks on Wednesday morning in Groblersdal together with her former Elias Motsoaledi municipal manager, Minah Maredi and subsequently appeared before the Pretoria Specialized Commercial Crimes Court on the charges of corruption, money laundering and contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act by unlawfully investing municipal funds totalling R190 million to the defunct VBS Mutual Bank.
The arrests emanate from the Hawks’ investigation which uncovered that Mathebe allowed the Elias Motsoaledi Municipality to unlawfully invest R190 million into the VBS Mutual Bank wherein she received over R300 000 in gratification which included cash, accommodation and flight tickets. It is revealed that these gratifications were channelled through a company belonging to her children.
The Limpopo ANC said they support all efforts by law enforcement agencies to ensure that all those who are found to be on the wrong side of the law relating to the VBS are brought to book and face the full might of the law.
” The ANC is giving cde Julia Mathebe space and respect for her to attend to the court matter without any distractions, consequently cde Julia Mathebe will be stepping aside from her responsibilities of leadership and deployment as per the resolution of the 54th National conference and guidelines” ANC provincial spokesperson Jimmy Machaka said.
Mathebe is expected to return to court on the 2rd of March 2023.
Towards the party national policy conference this year, ANC Limpopo teamed up with KZN to intensify their desire to have the step aside resolution to be scrapped or amended citing that it is ‘weaponized’ and is weakening the party; however, the resolution was overwhelmingly retained.
Since the adoption of step aside resolution during the ANC national elective conference in 2017, in Limpopo it had chopped the former ANC provincial treasurer Danny Msiza after being implicated in the VBS Bank heist scandal.
Towards the 10th ANC provincial conference in July this year, Msiza was nominated for the provincial secretary in Mathabatha slate, however with VBS scandal still swirling upon him, Msiza declined the nomination in favour of the current party’s provincial secretary Ruben Madadzhe.
