The senior counsel capitulated like Courage, the Cowardly Dog during a broadcast interview
Bumbling like he was battling a bad babalaas, Dali Mpofu, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) former chairperson, continued his party’s time-honoured flip-flopping tendency — this time on the VBS bank heist.
Mpofu, as an advocate, was dispatched by the party to do media rounds after Tshifhiwa Matodzi, the former chairperson of the now defunct VBS Mutual Bank, wrote an affidavit directly implicating the EFF’s top leadership as the beneficiaries of some of the more than R2.5 billion of savings and pensioners’ money that was looted in 2016 and 2017.
During an interview with Newzroom Afrika over the weekend, Mpofu flipped like a failed attempt at flapjacks from the EFF’s initial story that the party had not received any of the looted funds.
For background, Matodzi — in an affidavit before the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court sitting in Palm Ridge — stated that he paid the EFF R16 million after meeting leader Julius Malema, deputy Floyd Shivambu and secretary general Marshall Dlamini in April or May 2017 allegedly to stop the party’s criticism of the bank on public platforms.
The criticism followed VBS granting former president Jacob Zuma a R7.5 million loan for his Nkandla residence in KwaZulu-Natal, with Matodzi saying the EFF’s “negative commentary” related to the loan was “damaging [VBS’s] reputation”, adding that he was asked to make a “donation” to the EFF so that its public lashings of the bank would stop.
“Myself, Julius and Floyd understood the concept of donation to mean gratification, hence Floyd and Julius did not provide me with the EFF’s own banking details for these ‘donations’,” Matodzi stated.
The former bank chairperson was sentenced to an effective 15 years imprisonment after confessing to the grand scheme and agreeing to become a state witness.
Realising that Matodzi’s affidavit had flung the EFF face-deep in faecal matter, Mpofu was deployed to spin the story like a ballerina in Swan Lake on opening night in Moscow.
Stuttering like a stuck Celine Dion record, Mpofu denied any fraud or corruption, saying the VBS money given to the EFF was “a loan”. He added that the party received “a donation” from the bank because “there is no political party that doesn’t receive donations”.
But, during an October 2018 EFF media briefing, Mpofu, in his capacity as chairperson, rejected claims that the party received money from VBS, saying its “only source of funding” was the R10 membership fee paid upon joining the organisation, as well as what he called “donations in kind”.
“Our members make donations all the time … but we have not found such a donation [from VBS] in this case. If it was there, we wouldn’t hide it because it happens all the time,” the lawyer confidently contended.
No party makes about-turns like the EFF.
The difference between Malema and Mpofu, however, is that the former contradicts his positions with the confidence of WWE founder Vince McMahon walking towards the ring.
Mpofu, on the other hand, is known as the counsel who capitulates quicker than the cartoon character Courage, the Cowardly Dog when the heat is turned on him.
You don’t believe me?
Who can forget a flustered Mpofu at the Marikana commission of inquiry getting “hot under the collar” — as described by news channel eNCA — in August 2014 when Cyril Ramaphosa, who was deputy president at the time, exposed the advocate for asking him to put in a word with then president Zuma for him to be conferred with senior counsel status, in line with guidelines of the Legal Practice Act?
As is his default setting when the heat is turned up, Mpofu flailed his arms as he tried to stop the cupcake-in-chief from detailing their private talks.
This is why I believe the EFF needs to bench Mpofu for any future spinning contests (not the car spinning Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie wants to popularise) when needing to “clarify” the party’s involvement in the VBS saga.
