Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy leader Floyd Shivambu has expressed intentions to contest the Parliament’s Ethics Committee report on VBS that accused him of violating the ethics code.
Floyd Shivambu targets ethics policy loophole to discredit VBS report in court
The violation was said to be due to Shivambu’s failure to declare money he received from VBS Mutual Bank.
The committee discovered that an amount of R180,000 was deposited into Shivambu’s account in August 2017, segmented into three separate deposits within the same month.
The initial deposit was R100,000, followed by R50,000, and lastly R30,000.
Despite this, the EFF remains adamant that the transactions were loans, not donations, pointing out that parliamentary rules do not necessitate the declaration of loans by members.
According to Shivambu, the funds were not from VBS but from Sgameka Projects, a business entity owned by his brother, Brian Shivambu.
The party claimed that the money was a loan and not a donation as asserted by the committee.
READ MORE – Gifts, shares and property declared by Pravin Gordhan, Julius Malema, John Steenhuisen and six other MPs
Due to its nature as a loan, the EFF argues that Shivambu was not required to report it to the Registrar of Members’ Interests in Parliament. The Red Berets criticised the ethics committee’s conclusion, calling it inaccurate as it categorised the amount as a donation to Shivambu.
Shivambu is set to challenge the report’s findings in court, stating that the committee’s conclusion about the undeclared donation is erroneous and does not reflect the true situation.
The EFF is confident that the legal challenge will prove successful, emphasizing that the committee does not hold the power to question loans between individuals, especially when the parties have evidently proven the loan agreement.
This situation unfolds as the ethics committee continues its annual practice of receiving declarations of financial interests from members of the national legislature, aiming to maintain transparency and ethical conduct among parliamentary members.
Shivambu’s case highlights a potential loophole in the ethics policy regarding the declaration of loans, which is now subject to legal examination as the case progresses to court.