The VBS Mutual Bank scandal rips me apart. To think that it has been Christmas every day for some of the country’s politicians and black Christmas for the poor and vulnerable, deeply pains me.
How people enriched themselves through the bank reads like a theatre production. When I first heard about this looting I was naive and thought my country can’t be this bad. I was proven wrong because my country is that bad.
While people are waiting for service delivery, those who claim to be our liberators are looting state coffers. We all know this is not the first scandal. We have had all sorts of them and our politicians, most times, go free.
Please allow me to not be politically correct on this platform.
Who would then blame the residents of Westbury, Eldorado Park and Ennerdale in Gauteng for their anger? Who would point fingers to frustrated people of Bonteheuwel, Mitchell’s Plain and many other predominantly coloured areas. Their pain is my pain and the poor man’s pain.
I feel their frustration because as coloureds they hoped when democracy came, we would all be equal. What our black brothers are now doing has created an assumption that blacks are benefiting in the democratic government.
The truth is, exiles, former political prisoners and their families and close allies are more than benefiting. The predominantly coloured areas have risen up and there is more to come if the government continues like this.
These are residents and citizens who have been crying for help from government with, among other things, crime in their areas.
People in Manenberg have been crying for safety and for soldiers to be deployed. But do you think our politicians care?
Nyanga has been leading for more than 15 years in crime stats. Do you think the political parties care? No, because it is something they will use to gain votes. They will be in Nyanga to say, we will do better than that political party. They will be in Manenberg to say that party does not care about you.
That is all they care for – our votes not any other thing.
I do not believe that the frustrations of the coloured community are centred around their citizenship, but around service delivery to their areas. And they have every right to be frustrated. We are currently in recession and who feels it harder than the poor? The prices of food and petrol are going up every day. Who feels the pinch? The poor men and women.
The VBS scandal has started to advance political grandstanding and rhetoric from our masters. Instead of getting to the bottom of the problem, they are shouting from rooftops, lying that heads will roll.
Remember in the Nkandla scandal? Heads were to have rolled but the same minister who approved the so-called swimming pools and golden streets to the kraals is still a minister.
Before you get excited that looters will pay that money back, think back of all the scandals that have happened in the country. Think about all the commissions that we have had.
Has anybody been arrested or made to pay back? No, and now nothing will happen to the looters of VBS. The black Christmas will continue for the poor black man. VBS echoes in my ear a big scam of poor people. Poor men you have been ripped off.