ANC veteran and businessman Tokyo Sexwale dropped a bomb during a recent TV interview when he said several billions of rand that he raised to fight Covid-19 and to assist poor university students, had been looted from state coffers.
The National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) have now challenged him to provide them with proof that he deposited the money with the central bank.
Sexwale made the claims during an eNCA talk show Truth to Power hosted by JJ Tabane on Sunday night in which he said that he raised billions of rand and the funds were channelled to the central bank in 2016.
He said former president Jacob Zuma and President Cyril Ramaphosa were aware of the funds, and it was for those reasons that Zuma announced free education during the first day of the ANC elective conference in December 2017.
“This is a police matter. We opened a case with the police two weeks ago,” he said.
But the National Treasury under Minister Tito Mboweni and Governor Lesetja Kganyago said there is no evidence to support the existence of such funds.
Instead, they said Sexwale could be the victim of a common scam.
They said they had previously received correspondence from Sexwale and many others that alleged that billions of rands have been stolen from a fund that had been referred to as the ‘White Spiritual Boy Trust’ and which was set up by a foreign donor.
“It is further alleged that there are trillions of dollars in the said fund and that, inter alia, a certain Mr Goodwin Erin Webb was its mandated representative in South Africa.
“On investigation, the SARB can confirm that it had no record of the existence of the said fund and it had advised Mr Sexwale in writing that, given the SARB’s experience and knowledge of this and other similar matters, it could only conclude that the alleged fund was a scam,” the statement said.
Sexwale was not available for comment.