By Dipo Olowookere
On Friday, the Black First Land First (BLF) movement marched to the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to demand that the institution act on the Public Protector’s preliminary report which found that ABSA illegally benefited from apartheid cash injections from the SARB.
BLF joined the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) recently in a march to ABSA headquarters to demand that #ABSAmustPay. The Public Protector, Adv Busisiwe Mkhwebane, found that ABSA should pay R3.2 billion.
BLF said they wanted the SARB to take seriously and act on findings of the CIEX report, which investigated money stolen during the late stages of institutionalised apartheid. The report found that R26 billion could be immediately recoverable.
The aim of the march was to also implore the SARB to punish corrupt banks, ABSA, Standard Bank and Investec, which the Competition Commission found had manipulated and fixed the rand/dollar price.
Adedapo Adesanya