Some mayors and senior officials in the 14 municipalities that made R1.5bn in deposits to the controversial VBS Bank remain defiant in the face of criticism — even producing legal opinions to defend their decisions. This was revealed by Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Zweli Mkhize who said the mayors and officials insisted in a meeting in June that they had followed the law. "The question we asked them is whether they had a council decision for investing in VBS Bank and most of them said no. We asked them how that happened. They said they considered this as an investment wherein they don’t need to go to report to council," he said. "They said this was just an investment of the money they had which was in the delegated power of some of the executives, so they went ahead with it. They said they took three quotes, looked at who has the best return and … invested the money."
Mkhize said other officials argued that they had misinterpreted legislation that d...
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