By Staff Reporter
The spectacular and devastating collapse of the VBS Mutual Bank is the subject of a new documentary that premieres on Showmax from 25 March and will screen on M-Net from 2 April.
The People vs. VBS explores what is often described as South Africa’s largest bank heist. What started off as the Venda Building Society, a pioneering black-owned bank founded in 1982, collapsed amid allegations that its executives siphoned billions from depositors, many from rural communities.
Screening over two Wednesdays from 25 March, the four-part Showmax Original is directed by Richard Finn Gregory and produced by Elle Oosthuizen and Wim Steyn.
Local documentary filmmaker Dowelani Edward Nenzhelele, whose own family lost hundreds of thousands of rands, can relate to the suffering. “What kind of man can do that to poor villagers?” he asks, highlighting the devastating impact on ordinary people who trusted the bank with their life savings.
The documentary revisits the scandal eight years after the collapse. It traces the flow of money from a small mutual bank into the hands of multinational auditors, political figures, and even a former president. It focuses in on depositors, like an 86-year-old woman who lost R650,000 she had saved over 30 years. “These were individuals who deposited their life savings only for it to be siphoned by a few executives,” said VBS liquidator, Anoosh Rooplal.
VBS had once been a model for development finance in South Africa, offering microloans and joint accounts for burial societies and stokvels. The documentary shows how a bank meant to serve communities, including those in Vhembe, became a Ponzi-like scheme, devastating the very people it was created to help.