Mariette Venter was the acting CFO of the Capricorn municipality in Limpopo. The municipality was one of many which had loaned cash to VBS Mutual Bank. Venter recognised several red flags, demanded the money back and was suspended for her efforts. The saga began in June 2016 and the executive mayor Gilbert Kganyago, summonsed her to account for her resolute instruction to the management of VBS Mutual Bank in which she threatened to recall a municipal investment of more than R60m. The bank could not provide its credit rating and investment grading – documents Venter needed to report back to the municipality’s audit committee. The municipality invested in VBS at the instance of Kganyago in December 2015, when Venter was at home on maternity leave. The Daily Maverick reports that Venter remembers her discussion with Kganyago: ‘Who do you think you are to make and withdraw investments of the municipality?’ Kganyago wanted to know. ‘Well, I am the CFO,’ she said. ‘Initiating and withdrawing investments are part of my daily duties, it is my job.’ Venter couldn’t have known then that VBS Mutual Bank would spectacularly implode roughly two years after her altercation with Kganyago. She was unaware that her subsequent complaint to the South African Reserve Bank, lodged when VBS refused to pay back the money, would form part of a dynamic ripple effect which in the end would shine a spotlight on institutionalised criminality. She was also in the dark about accusations circulating in VBS that she was a ‘white lady’ who didn’t want to invest in a black bank.