Members of the Thulamela Business Forum (TBF), led by its chairperson, Ntsieni Mbulungeni, joined hundreds of hawkers on Monday to march from the Thohoyandou branch of VBS to the Nedbank branch in Thohoyandou to hand over a memorandum of their grievances.
Mbulungeni said afterwards that the aim of the Save VBS campaign was to defend the institution and what it represented to the people of the region. The forum expressed belief that VBS Mutual could still be a viable business, because many people still owed the bank money.
The business forum is also very sceptical of the decision of the curator to allow Nedbank to "take over" VBS's clients. Mbulungeni said they wanted to meet with Nedbank officials to voice their concerns about the bank's facilitation of VBS clients' accounts.
Among the demands made during Monday's march is that Nedbank return all the money belonging to VBS clients to the Reserve Bank. The TBF reckons Nedbank has failed to dispatch the money to the owners in 30 days. Mbulungeni said the Reserve Bank would have to devise a workable solution that would ease the frustration of the people and cut the travelling costs of the clients.
"We also demand that the profit made by Nedbank in the transaction be given to charity or community development projects. It cannot be right that Nedbank would see a business opportunity (based) on the misfortune of our people," said Mbulungeni.
"Those who looted from the bank must face the full might of the law, because we cannot allow our people to be robbed of their money. There are still clients who say that they want the bank to be saved. The bank did not do anything, but it's people who wronged them," said Mbulungeni.
Nedbank Bank's Divisional Executive: Retail and Business Banking, Mr Dave Schwegmann, said the forum had to direct their grievances to the curator, because the decision had been made by the curator and not the bank. Schwegmann denied that any suspicious dealings had taken place.
Nedbank spokesperson Ms Kedibone Molopyane said the bank had accepted the memorandum handed to them by the TBF and would respond to the forum.
According to Nedbank's Provincial General Manager, Mr Looderick Lubisi, close to 6 000 former VBS clients have already activated their accounts at Nedbank. Qualifying VBS retail clients who had not activated their accounts were encouraged to visit the nearest branches of the bank.
"Qualifying clients of VBS retail need to present their identity document or another accepted form of identification and proof of address to access their funds. It is a South African Reserve Bank requirement that VBS retail clients will be acquired to sign a cession agreement in respect of their existing VBS retail deposits in favour of SARB. These cession forms are available at all Nedbank branches," he said.