Kevin Mileham

It soon became clear that municipalities were unlikely to recover the funds deposited with VBS, prompting Mileham to lay criminal charges against municipal officials and politicians who had influenced the illegal deposits. The Motau Report (released by the Reserve Bank in October 2018) found evidence of wide-scale looting, fraud and corruption, and recommended that bank leadership, public officials and auditors be criminally charged and held liable in civil proceedings.

Mileham has two children from his first marriage to Laura Guest. He married fellow Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament, Natasha Mazzone in July 2017.

Mileham continued to drive the issue in parliament, and the National Treasury eventually issued a warning to municipalities in August 2017 that this practice was unacceptable. The Treasury has admitted that they caught on too late to the illegality of the municipal deposits. Despite the advice of the National Treasury, it appears that municipalities continued to deposit funds with the bank. The issue only garnered national attention in January 2018, when liquidity problems caused by some municipalities attempting to withdraw their funds, forced the South African Reserve Bank, which regulates all banking activities in the country, to place VBS under curatorship.

In mid-2016, Mileham began asking parliamentary questions about municipal deposits with VBS Mutual Bank. In terms of the South African Municipal Finance Management Act (No. 56 of 2003), municipalities may only open bank accounts with financial institutions registered in terms of the Banks Act (No. 94 of 1990, as amended by Act 3 of 2015). Mutual banks, like VBS, are registered in terms of the Mutual Banks Act (No. 124 of 1993), and are therefore ineligible to accept municipal deposits.

After his re-election in 2014, Mileham was appointed the Shadow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs by the new Leader of the Opposition, Mmusi Maimane. In February 2019, he was appointed as Shadow Minister of Energy. He held this position until June 2019, when Maimane appointed him as Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy.

In 2013, following the death of Pine Pienaar, a member of the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature, the DA's provincial leader Athol Trollip elected to return to the province following his reelection defeat to Lindiwe Mazibuko for the position of DA Parliamentary Leader, paving the way for Mileham to take up Trollip's seat in parliament. His appointment as Shadow Deputy Minister for Land Reform and Rural Development came at a time (just before the 2014 National and Provincial Elections) when land restitution was in the national spotlight, and Mileham was soon in the thick of it

In 2007, Mileham was selected to be part of the first class of Democratic Alliance's Young Leaders Programme, a year-long political and leadership development course. In 2009, he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament. In 2011, he was elected as a municipal councillor to the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, and was appointed as the DA's Chief Whip.

In 2001, he relocated to the Eastern Cape, where he founded his own marketing and management consultancy business, Forward Momentum, focusing on the development of non-governmental organizations and small, medium and micro-enterprises.

Post studies, he commenced work for The Jupiter Drawing Room, an award-winning South African advertising agency, handling brands such as Coca-Cola and 5FM. In 1996, he was employed by Coca-Cola to launch the Powerade sports drink in South Africa. In 1998 he joined Microsoft South Africa as a marketing manager, initially only covering consumer products, but later promoted to include all desktop applications (including Microsoft Office and Windows) for both the consumer and business sectors.

Mileham was actively involved in party politics for the former Democratic Party as a party agent and activist during the 1994 and 1999 elections. In 2003, he became actively involved in local politics as a result of the failure of the local municipality to provide services to disadvantaged communities. He joined the Democratic Alliance in Port Alfred (Ndlambe Local Municipality) where he was soon appointed constituency chairperson. In 2006, he was elected to the Ndlambe municipal council, and appointed as the party's Chief Whip and finance spokesperson.

Mileham matriculated with academic honours from Selborne College in East London in 1988 and went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Commerce (Legal) degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He continued his studies to obtain a post-graduate Diploma in Advertising and Marketing from AAA School of Advertising.

Kevin John Mileham (born 23 April 1971) is a South African politician, a Member of the South African Parliament for the Democratic Alliance and the Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy. Mileham was first elected to Parliament on 3 June 2013, replacing Athol Trollip. His first parliamentary role was as the Shadow Deputy Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development. After the 2014 National Elections, he was appointed the Shadow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. In February 2019, he was appointed as Shadow Minister of Energy. After the National and Provincial Elections on 8 May 2019, Mileham was appointed as Shadow Minister of the expanded portfolio of Mineral Resources and Energy.