1. HON. Members, the Minority Front supports the motion by HON. Frazer, with a focus on recommendations.
2. The Director of FIC, Murray Mitchell should have a performance agreement drawn up.
3. Yesterday’s Mercury, reported that the South African Reserve Bank is at the forefront of managing the rising wave of illicit financial flows and money laundering, with its Deputy Governor claiming that SA is losing billions.
4. HON. Members, the National Assembly must broaden the scope of the FIC, which is limited to monitoring the formal financial sector to include the informal and public sector companies.
5. The amendments to the FIC Act, gives the reserve bank significant powers to monitor transactions and require banks to report suspicious transactions. Our national Minister of Finance must ask for these reports, eg recently, in the hunt of India’s black money, the government submitted 627 names to the Supreme Court in its search for undeclared foreign bank accounts.
6. Therefore, there has to be greater co-operation between SARS, SARB and FIC to connect the dots regarding money laundering, tax evasion or fraud.
7. Finally, the gap in law enforcement where 151 cases given to the police and or NPA, over the past 5 years saw only 2 prosecutions. Hence, time, resources, expertise, skills or will to prosecute have to be examined.
8. The Minority Front recommends developing policy options for the Minister of finance based on an assessment of available financial intelligence rather than an investigation because as legislators, we need to appreciate that this would enhance practical regulatory input from all stakeholders, that will fast-track prosecutions and financial accountability.
9. Thank you.

Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi

Minority Front Leader (KZN Legislature)