New Fica is just waiting for Gigaba
former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi claimed that “the thieves have now seized national treasury”.
Gigaba has admitted to attending private events hosted by the Guptas and the Public Affairs Research Institute report noted that, throughout his tenure as minister of public enterprises, “Gigaba was engaged in the restructuring of SOE [stateowned enterprise] boards, which became broadly representative of ‘Gupta-Zuma’ interests”.
Gigaba, through his trusted spokesperson, Mayihlome Tshwete, has publicly refuted this, claiming he was not directly responsible for all the board appointments.
Anthony Smith, a partner for risk advisory and financial crime services at Deloitte, said: “It’s one thing signing it [the Fica Act] into law; it’s another making it operational. Realistically, it needs to be done by now. We have until the end of June — we don’t really have much more time.”
Smith also said that, even though the Act had not yet been gazetted, the fact that it had been signed into law meant that banks and other institutions could already begin to make some changes.
Cas Coovadia, managing director of the Banking Association South Africa (Basa), said there had been no indication of progress from the treasury. “As Basa, we think the regulation must be drafted and circulated as soon as possible for public comment and to enable banks to have clarity on a range of issues — especially the pips,” he said.
“There is an urgency that has not gone away. We need to move expeditiously.”
Another potential difficulty has been presented by Justice Minister Michael Masutha who, in a recent budget vote, noted that the original version of the Act made provision for an anti-money laundering advisory council to be made up of the heads of entities and directors general from the justice and financial clusters.
The council was never established and the amendment Act no longer makes provision for it.
Masutha said it was “crucial” for any regulations accompanying the Fica Act to include such an advisory council that “would serve as an oversight accountability structure in relation to the functioning of the Financial Intelligence Centre and would advise government on its endeavours in the fight against money laundering, illicit financial flows and terror financing”.
Lawson Naidoo, executive director at the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, described Masutha’s view as “absolutely bizarre”. “The matter has been through Cabinet, and has been through Parliament twice. There are absolutely no grounds for the Act not to be implemented.”
If a provision for an advisory council were included in the regulations, Coovadia said the Banking Association would not make a big deal about it. “It must not be an excuse for any further delays,” he said.
Maynier accused Masutha of being the mastermind behind a “power grab” of the Financial Intelligence Centre and alleged that the security cluster wanted control of the centre.
He doubted this could be done by resuscitating the council by way of regulation. “It could hardly be considered expedient, and could only be able to be done in our view by amending the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Act,” he said. The chair of the parliamentary standing committee on finance, Yunus Carrim, said some parts of the Act require regulations that need to be consulted on, but other parts can come into effect sooner. “The committee has decided that we will monitor progress on the implementation of the Act as part of our quarterly review of progress on national treasury’s programmes. The next such briefing will take place on June 20,” he said.