Why is Floyd Shivambu’s brother, Brian, the face of the VBS Mutual Bank looting when he is not a public figure?

This was a question posed by the EFF leader Julius Malema to the media on Tuesday.

A forensic report by the SA Reserve Bank has placed Brian, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu’s brother, among 53 others who cleaned out almost R2bn from VBS.

Malema argued that Brian – said to have walked away with over R16m – is used as the face of looting at the bank because he has links to the EFF.

“Why do we have a face of Brian Shivambu as a face of VBS loot when you’ve got the whole treasurer of a province in Limpopo? When you’ve got the whole deputy chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo? When you’ve got the municipalities depositing money?" asked Malema.

The ANC Limpopo treasurer Malema is referring to is Danny Msiza who the report pointed to as the possible enabler of the “heist” that took place at the bank.

According to the report, Msiza used his political influence to canvass municipalities to invest in the bank.

Malema accused the media of not making ANC office bearers who are implicated in the report the faces of the looting because they wanted to protect the party’s national leadership.

“The people today just know the municipalities. They don’t know that those are ANC municipalities. You know why? It’s because of embedded journalism. To taint the ANC will be equal to tainting [President Cyril] Ramaphosa and [the media] want Ramaphosa to win at all cost therefore we can’t taint Ramaphosa.

“Brian is not a public representative. Brian is not a mayor. Brian is not a political office bearer in any political office. But his face is everywhere. If I were to ask any journalist here ‘do you know the face of Danny Msiza? No’, ‘do you know the face of a deputy chairperson of the ANC [in Limpopo]? No’,” said Malema.

He went on to warn the media that they were aware of its "biasness".