Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Former standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) chairperson Themba Godi has called upon government leaders to remove all hurdles that have deliberately been put in place to prevent the SA Post Office from obtaining a banking licence.
Godi, president of the African People’s Convention (APC), was reacting to Nedbank’s persistence in appealing an interim interdict preventing it from closing the accounts of Sekunjalo Investment Holdings and associated companies.
The group’s accounts remained open after the Western Cape High Court’s Judge Mokgoatji Dolamo this week reserved judgment on Nedbank’s application for leave to appeal a June ruling. In his ruling three months ago, Judge Dolamo ordered Nedbank to reopen Sekunjalo’s accounts that had been closed in April 2021, more than a year before the interdict was granted.
The permanent reopening of the accounts hinges on the final outcome of the group’s main Equality Court application against the actions of the bank.
“The South African economy is highly monopolised. A handful of individuals or entities hold sway over the economy and the livelihoods of millions of South Africans,” Godi said.
“The South African banking industry is a glaring case in point. It is dominated and controlled by a few banks whose actions and products are the same, and appear co-ordinated.”
Godi told the Pretoria News that the APC was concerned that this market abuse was occurring in the shadows.
“These forces hold sway over the financial instruments of government like the National Treasury and the Reserve Bank. These public institutions act in the interests of the banking cartel and not of the public or economic development.
“Worse still, even blacks who would like to have a bank with a progressive and developmental agenda are stifled. Monopoly capital doesn’t want there to be alternatives. Monopoly capital knows that with a state bank or a black-owned bank with a progressive and developmental agenda, they will be the biggest losers,” he said.
The APC leader said the findings of the Competition Commission, that uncovered collusion in the banking sector, never created any “noise”.
“Maria Ramos, then at Absa, confessed that the company had together with other banks manipulated the rand, to the detriment of the economy and the poor. This treasonous conduct was not a scandal nor was there a high-profile commission on it from the National Treasury or the Reserve Bank. It’s like it never happened.”
Godi added that although State Capture Commission chairperson Justice Raymond Zondo had also condemned the haphazard closure of bank accounts in his report, this issue had disappeared silently under a co-ordinated media blackout.
He said the only solution was to start with the Post Office’s application for a banking licence.
“The Post Office has long applied for a banking licence. It’s been years now without any movement in this regard. Even the ANC resolved five years ago that there should be a state bank. The party’s leadership, which directs public policy, has not implemented its own resolution. This shows the sway banks have over these leaders.
“We have seen the closure of bank accounts of some companies and individuals at a whim in a co-ordinated manner by the banks. In all of this, the government has been a mere disinterested spectator. Banks are a law unto themselves. The APC will not quietly watch monopoly morphing into censorship of any kind. We owe it to the future to speak out,” said Godi.
Pretoria News