A state-owned bank may be on its way to serve millions of South Africans if the recent developments around the issue are anything to go by.
Parliament has published in the national gazette its invitation to the public to comment on the draft bill proposed by the EFF MP and deputy president Floyd Shivambu to amend the Banks Act.
The amendment seeks to enable the state to register and conduct a bank in terms of the act.
This act currently bars the state from doing so, hence the Postbank cannot operate as a commercial bank.
According to the draft, the bill seeks to amend the Banks Act to make it possible for state-owned companies to register in terms of that act and to conduct the business of a bank.
“The requirements imposed by the Banks Act before a person may conduct the business of a bank, and register as such, makes it impossible for a state-owned companies registered in terms of the Companies Act to conduct the business of a bank,” the draft says.
Shivambu told The Star he was confident the process unfolding in Parliament would deliver a state-owned commercial bank.
“We know as a matter of fact that at the end of this process we’re going to amend the Banks Act,” he said.
“The intention is to create the capacity of the state to own (commercial) banks.
“The state only has some quasi-banks that are not fully recognised because the Banks Act does not permit that.
“Postbank is existing as a bank, but it cannot perform certain functions because the Banks Act does not permit it to do so,” Shivambu said.
Mark Barnes, chief executive of the SA Post Office, revealed last year that getting a commercial banking licence for Postbank was one of his priorities.
Shivambu said the move would also allow for the creation of state-owned commercial banks at provincial and local level.
Along with Postbank, these banks would adopt a “developmental mandate and obligations”.
“The current banking infrastructure, which is owned by a few white people and concentrated in four or five banks, has excluded a lot of our people from financial participation.”
The ANC emerged from its national general council in July last year saying a state-owned bank should be created within six months.
Shivambu denied the EFF was out to make a move before the ANC did.
“Anyone who suggests that we’re trying to steal the shine of the ANC is crazy,” he said.
“From the founding manifesto of the EFF, we already had outlined that there must a state-owned bank and that the Reserve Bank must be nationalised.
“From the formation of the EFF in 2013 that has been our policy position.
“The ANC only took a resolution about state banks after we did,” Shivambu said.
The DA said it stood ready to oppose the bill. It said this was the proposal of the ANC, but it was being “delivered vicariously by the EFF”.
“With more South Africans dependent on social grants than there are in employment, the EFF’s bill will propose to have a population both indebted and dependent on the government,” DA MP Gwen Ngwenya said.
@Bongani Nkosi87