South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Lesetja Kganyago insisted in parliament that their investigation into Phala Phala was above board.
He said their investigators had been given massive resources to work on the investigation, and they acted professionally, independently and without fear or favour.
Members of the opposition in the standing committee on finance were urging the chairperson of the committee, Joe Maswanganyi, to exclude them from his report endorsing the position of the SARB.
Maswanganyi had said the SARB had responded to the call to appear before the committee and they answered all questions.
But the EFF, UDM and DA said the reserve bank had left them with more questions than answers.
Kganyago said they did not interfere with the probe by their investigators.
He said they allowed them to get to the bottom of the Phala Phala saga and they were also given resources to do their work.
“We treat our mandate seriously. As the Governor, with the Deputy Governors, we kept an arms length from the investigation. We allowed our investigators latitude. We availed them massive resources, both internally and externally. They sought external legal resources, we availed those.
“They travelled, asking for information and they got to the bottom of it. They tabled the report to us as the executives of the bank and we accepted it. We sought outside legal counsel on the report, we asked questions and we got satisfied that our team acted professionally, with integrity and they acted independently and without fear, favour or prejudice. That is what we expected them to do and they did that,” said Kganyago.
SARB was one of the institutions that were investigating Phala Phala. It released its report two weeks ago.
But EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu and DA MP Dion George said they will take the report on review.
Politics