Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has decried "unfortunate" claims by businessman Tokyo Sexwale that billions were stolen from an education trust fund, and added that Sexwale may have been scammed.

Mboweni tweeted on Monday: "Mr Tokyo Sexwale's statement about stolen money is untrue, sad and seems that he was a victim of the many scams abound. You cannot steal transmitted money from the central bank. How? His statement on television was unfortunate. Will reach out to him."

Sexwale dropped a surprise bombshell during an interview with JJ Tabane on his eNCA show, Power to Truth, by claiming there was a "Heritage Fund" with billions of rands that was supposed to pay for free education for the needy as well as to contribute to South Africa's Covid-19 relief efforts.

Sexwale told Tabane, "I am part of two people who are in charge of the Heritage Fund that belongs to a very powerful family out there in the world. This fund is here in South Africa already, it comes through the SA Reserve Bank. I'm part of two people who are mandate holders."

He said both former president Jacob Zuma as well as his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, knew about this fund, as well as Mboweni and his predecessor, whom he didn't name. 

Education

The fund was one of the reasons why Zuma announced free tertiary education for indigent students ahead of the African National Congress's (ANC's) national elective conference at Nasrec in 2017.

Sexwale said he was "in the process of making sure this money is brought into the economy, we found some resistance. And when we checked the resistance, we found some of this money has been stolen".

He said the alleged theft was reported with the police two weeks ago, and they were investigating.

It has not been clarified what the Heritage Fund was that Sexwale was referring to, and why it took so long for knowledge of this fund to be made public.

Sexwale has previously made a bid for the ANC presidency, ahead of the ANC's conference in 2007, when he ended up throwing his weight behind Zuma, and in 2012, when he ran for deputy president, but lost against Ramaphosa with about a tenth of the votes that Ramaphosa got.

The ANC's next elective conference is set to take place next year.