Sign the bill and fight graft

THE delay in the signing of the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill by President Jacob Zuma is worrying.

The bill has been approved by parliament and the cabinet, but has been in the president’s intray for some time now. This has raised alarm among antigraft campaigners that the president won’t sign it.

If signed into law, it will enable banks to scrutinise the accounts of prominent public figures, including government ministers when the financial institutions suspect corrupt transactions.

The reason Zuma has not signed it, is apparently because of an objection over its constitutionality raised by the Progressive Professionals Forum, an outfit headed by former government official Jimmy Manyi.

We can only speculate about the real reasons of those objecting to the bill and what they are afraid of. Whatever their real motives, the lobbyists against the bill are at liberty to use their own resources to approach the courts to rule on the matter. And we urge them to do so without delay.

It’s time those in favour of the bill also raised their voices in support of it.

We are encouraged by the utterances of Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, who has expressed support for its final approval to curb graft.

According to press reports, he told the South African Clothing and Textile Union national conference last week that if the national leadership failed to deal with the current “national drift” and corruption, it would lose the moral authority to guide the country through the challenges it faced.

Patel suggested public officials, including ministers, should be subject to financial audits to ensure the lifestyles they led matched their declared incomes.

We could not agree with him more. We hope more of his cabinet colleagues would support him and prevail on the president to fulfil his constitutional obligation.

Calls for lifestyle audits for public officials have been made before but nothing much has been done to give effect to the suggestion. The financial intelligence law would be a powerful tool that would go a long way to enable the audits to be done.

It’s the kind of legislation that is urgently needed to curb rampant thievery and graft and we urge the president to sign it.