Call for Bank to release apartheid records
The Reserve Bank’s “blanket refusal” to grant an archive group access to documents in its possession is not fitting for a democratic state, particularly given the apartheid government’s obsession with secrecy.
Advocate Geoff Budlender made these submissions in the High Court in Johannesburg on Friday. He was representing the South African History Archive, which is seeking records of suspected apartheid-era financial crime from the Bank.
The archive made 14 requests to the Bank, under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, for records that would reveal evidence of fraud — including through manipulation of the financial rand dual currency and foreign exchange, the forging of Eskom bonds and sanctions-busting.
The archive’s request relates to Vito Roberto Palazzolo, Jan Blaauw and Robert Oliver Hill.
Palazzolo, who allegedly laundered money for South African-Israeli weapon programmes, is imprisoned in Italy for Mafia-related crimes.
Blaauw, who was allegedly involved in the arms trade, is no longer alive. Hill was prosecuted for fraud, in some cases related to forged Eskom bonds. However, prosecuting authorities elected not to pursue charges at the time.
“The records requested were those that would reveal evidence of significant fraud. What we have [concerning Blaauw and Palazzolo] doesn’t constitute a record showing any evidence of that,” said advocate Nic Maritz, representing the Bank.
The National Prosecuting Authority would have the best records revealing serious exchange-control contravention and fraud by Hill, Maritz said.
Asking for all documents in the Bank’s possession concerning Blaauw and Palazzolo, as the archive later did, would unreasonably divert the resources of a public body, which was grounds for refusing access to information under the act, he said.
The Bank, which was seeking a cost order against the archive, also relied on other exemptions under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, such as the mandatory protection of personal and commercial information pertaining to third parties.
For example, a member of the public could not access information pertaining to the movement of foreign exchange, as this was privileged information that the Bank obtained in the course of performing its functions, said Maritz.
Notwithstanding the exemp- tions, it was in the public interest for the information to be made available, Budlender said.
The act was gazetted in 2000 to give effect to the constitutional right of access to information held by the state. In its preamble, it notes that the apartheid regime “resulted in a secretive and unresponsive culture in public and private bodies, which often led to an abuse of power and human rights violations”.
Judgment was reserved.