‘False prophet’ Zuma taken to task

THE ANC’s call for the fundamental transformation of the financial sector was not meant to collapse the banking system but to change monopolistic behaviour, Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele said yesterday.

Speaking in parliament during the debate on President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation address, Cwele said there was a need to review the financial sector charter in relation to access to finance for small and informal businesses as well as financial inclusion, affordability and bank charges.

The ANC had been calling for opening of space for a variety of sectorspecific banks or second-tier banks such as a construction bank, stokvels, cooperative banks and state banks to improve access and affordability to support inclusive growth, he said.

Zuma’s address last week focused largely on radical economic transformation, including changing patterns of ownership.

During Friday’s TNA business breakfast, sponsored by Gupta-owned newspaper The New Age, the president raised concern about the monopoly held by South Africa’s four big banks and said more banks were needed so transformation of the economy could take place.

“We actually frustrate our economy deliberately by making only a few peo- ple control the economy,” Zuma said.

“At the heart of the economy is finance.

“If the [major] banks that dominate everything are just four . . . in all countries where the economy is developing, the banks are all over because it is the finances that make the economy grow,” he said.

“We want to change this – the time has come. We should be able to deal with the economy at a fair level.”

The top four banks are Absa, Standard Bank, First National Bank and Nedbank.

Last year, Zuma criticised the banks after they ceased doing business with the Gupta-owned Oakbay group amid allegations that the family was using its relationship with the president to secure business and other favours.

Cwele said yesterday that the “urgent” need to corporatise Postbank would help change the status quo in the sector.

Postbank “is a state bank which seeks to promote the universal access to banking while at the same time providing a platform for the disbursement of various state transactions such as social grants”, he said.

The Reserve Bank approved the South African Post Office’s application to establish a bank in July last year. Cwele said the Postbank’s company registration was being finalised.

Six people had been approved and were available to be appointed as members of the Postbank board after undergoing a fit and proper assess- ment by the Reserve Bank.

“The financial risk modelling and capital adequacy of the Postbank have been finalised,” Cwele said. “The bank is well capitalised. “The final and difficult hurdle we are addressing in consultation with the minister of finance and subsequently the cabinet, is the resolution of challenges around the Postbank controlling company.”

DA MP Geordin Hill-Lewis said the truth was that radical economic trans- formation “is a code word for radical corruption”.

He said: “The ANC has long abandoned the idea of real broad-based empowerment, if they ever believed in it at all.

“Empowerment – ANC style – is empowerment for billionaires and millionaires and scraps for the rest.”

Another DA MP, Solly Malatsi, said the ANC continuously failed the people of South Africa.

“We live in the era of false prophets and pastors,” Malatsi said.

“One of those false prophets was on this podium last week Thursday, preaching the gospel of deception.”

The first day of the debate was boycotted by COPE and the EFF, but COPE MPs made a surprise return during yesterday’s debate.

COPE MP Deidre Carter, who called for parliament to be disbanded, said Zuma was an incumbent “at war with his own country and at war with the constitution and the rule of law”.

“It is time to hold fresh elections to elect honourable men and women to put the people first and not the party,” she said.

Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald said it was Zuma who had lost the “moral compass”, a reference to Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe’s speech on Tuesday.

Groenewald said Zuma blamed whites for his government's shortcomings.

“You are the person who is supposed to set an example,” he said.

“You are the root cause of what we are having in South Africa.

“Every time there’s something wrong, you blame the white people.

“You must say where you stand with the white people of South Africa.”

Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu came to Zuma’s defence, telling DA MPs “there is a limit to how far you can push us”, to loud jeers from the opposition, who accused her of threatening them.

Zuma will address a joint sitting of parliament today to reply to the rowdy and bad-tempered debate.

ANC style is empowerment for billionaires and millionaires and scraps for the rest