Zuma delaying passage of bill
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma is coming under growing public pressure to sign into power – or to return to the National Assembly on substantive grounds – the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment (Fica) Bill.
For months now Zuma has dallied. He has been accused of wilfully refusing to assent to the bill because of its intended aim, among others, to shine a harsher spotlight on the financial circumstances of prominent and politically connected individuals.
Given the company Zuma keeps, you can bet some of his closer acquaintances and family members fall comfortably within the ambit of this amendment.
Parliament endorsed the legislation in May already.
It simply remains for Zuma to make up his mind. He is, after all, entertaining a legislative instrument which demands nothing less than urgency.
A few events in the last week have added to the impetus.
One involved Absa Bank and Fana Hlongwane, who tried, through access to information laws, to force the financial institution to reveal why they had closed his personal and company accounts in 2013. Hlongwane was a shady figurehead to the arms deal.
He earned chunky fees for his mediations with overseas firms. He insists his hands are clean.
On Thursday, according to reports, the Pretoria High Court threw out his application, saying the bank was well within its fiduciary rights to cancel his accounts.
The Fica bill is important because once it becomes law, banks have a greater onus to monitor and report suspicious financial transactions, under worldwide agreement.
The Absa judgment helps to reaffirm this duty.
Already the Guptas are feeling the pre-emptive sting of this heightened approach to combating international money laundering after four of the country’s major banks rejected their business.
Last week, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution asked the Constitutional Court for an order compelling Zuma to act expeditiously.
Zuma, being Zuma, will seek to delay passage of the bill. But Fica goes beyond domestic law. Sooner or later, it will enter our statute, and we will all be better for it.