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Relief as Zuma signs FICA bill into law
 
Cape Town - The Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) breathed a huge sigh of relief after President Jacob Zuma
signed the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment (FICA) bill into law
.
The FIC Bill is important in bolstering the fight against global financial crime and improving the integrity of South Africa’s banking system.
Pressure was mounting on South Africa to enact the bill with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the body that monitors compliance with anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering regulations – giving the country until June to enact the legislation.
READ:
FIC Bill delay: Presidency keeps mum as clock ticks
The Fica Bill, which has been fiercely opposed by the Black Business Council (BBC) and ex-government spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi’s Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF), was initially passed by Parliament in May 2016 and submitted for Zuma to sign on June 13.
However, Zuma dragged his heels on signing the bill, which he sent back to Parliament in December, six months after it landed on his desk, citing concerns over a provision that pertained to warrantless searches.
After another round of public hearings in January to address the concerns raised by Zuma and other stakeholders, including the PPC, the bill was unanimously passed by the National Assembly in February and sent to the president for ratification.
"The President is now satisfied that the Act addresses the constitutional concerns he had raised about warrantless searches," the Presidency’s Dr Bongani Ngqulunga said in a statement on Saturday.
"The Amendment Act sends a strong message about South Africa’s commitment to combating financial crime, protecting the integrity of our financial system and our tax base, and remaining part of the global financial system. They further demonstrate South Africa’s membership commitments to the Financial Action Task Force and United Nations," he added.
READ:
ANC abhors money laundering, says Ramaphosa on FIC Bill
However, BASA's managing director Cas Coovadia said "it is a pity we reached a stage where FATF had to warn us we would be delinquent if we had not signed by June".
He explained that the signing of the bill ensures banks in SA remain at the cutting edge of global best practice and we are able to identify and deal with money laundering, terrorism financing and other such activities.
"The signing also enables a risk-based approach to combating these activities, so that bank clients who are less susceptible to such activities will be subject to lighter touch regulation and those significantly susceptible to such activities will be subject to stronger oversight."
READ:
Zuma slammed for wasting time as Parliament adopts FIC Bill
Meanwhile, the DA is now fearing that Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba may delay the implementation of the bill.
DA MP and spokesperson on finance David Maynier said there could still be significant delays in implementing the legislation because it only actually commence on a date to be determined by the minister and published in the Government Gazette.
"The minister will no doubt be under political pressure to delay the implementation of the legislation to protect his political master’s most important clients, the Guptas," he claimed.
"There are also doubts about whether the Financial Intelligence Centre, which only has a budget of R289 million for 2017/18, will have the resources to effectively implement the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill."
Maynier said Gibaga should set out clear timeframes and budgets for the implementation of the bill. "Whatever the case, we will have to very carefully monitor the implementation of the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill."
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Rather than a decisive blow to anti-establishment wave, Macron's victory is a stop along a journey whose destination is still in question, explains Bloomberg columnist Mohamed A. El-Erian.
Once the initial market relief plays out - that, even during an unprecedented “anti-establishment” wave in both Europe and the US, French voters rejected a far right president in Marine Le Pen of the National Front - interest will shift to how relative newcomer Emmanuel Macron will manage to govern in a country accustomed to mainstream politics.
It is not just about his prospects for reinvigorating the French economy and, working closely with Germany, spearheading a modernisation of Europe. It is also about a bigger and more consequential issue: the extent to which endogenous political disruptions are opening the way for better economic governance in the West rather than just setting the stage for a bigger eventual political shock.
Results from France confirm what markets were expecting: a decisive loss for Le Pen. With the markets’ near certainty now becoming certainty, this is likely to give a further boost to risk sentiment in the short-run. However, the resulting rise in stocks, the appreciation of the euro, and the fall in the France-Germany government bond spreads will likely be tempered by what has already been priced following Macron’s first round win and the opinion polls forecasting Sunday’s vote.
Meanwhile, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank will be putting their contingency plans back on the shelf, with the ECB also preparing for greater pressure to ease off the monetary policy accelerator.
Beyond the immediate reactions, much will depend on the consequences of an establishment shakeup that speaks to considerable dissatisfaction among younger citizens. Remember, over half of them voted in the first round for fringe candidates: Le Pen of the extreme right and Jean-Luc Melenchon on the far left.
Like her father's loss to Jacques Chirac in 2002, Le Pen was unable to convert her relatively good first round showing into sufficient country-wide support in the second round of the presidential elections. Instead, she lost to a combination of genuine support for Macron and the coming together of voters insisting that France should not be led by someone from the National Front.
This highlights the challenges facing Macron who, just a few months ago, was a long shot in a crowded presidential field. He inherits a divided nation that, yes, resisted extreme politics yet remains highly dissatisfied with a system that has staggered through too many years of low growth, high youth unemployment, and glaring inequalities.
Now that Macron has been elected, markets will be gradually shifting their focus to his ability to overcome gridlock both at home and in Europe. Ahead of parliamentary elections in June, his choice of prime minister will signal how he intends to “cohabitate” as he tries to reinvigorate France within what he hopes will be a stronger and more coherent growth-oriented Europe. He must both cooperate with and shape a National Assembly whose long-standing mainstream parties just suffered a humiliating defeat at the polls.
It is a challenge that, in many ways, is similar to that facing two other G7 leaders who came to their countries’ highest office on the back of the anti-establishment wave - President Donald Trump of the UA and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain. All three leaders agree that the economy can - and should - benefit from low corporate tax rates and a slimmed-down government. They also agree that regionalisation and globalisation - as well as the evolution of national identity - need to pay greater attention to both real and perceived economic losers, even if they constitute a minority relative to the beneficiaries.
More generally, the Macron-May-Trump outcomes speak to an historic internal disruption to the functioning of traditional politics in the advanced world. And it is part of the larger erosion of trust, credibility, and effectiveness of the establishment, and not just in the public sector.
The jury is still out as to whether these three leaders will be able to lead mainstream-dominated parliaments in unleashing productivity, economic growth, and more inclusive market-based economies. Much will depend on the reaction of establishment forces that remain in control of significant parts of the public and private sectors.
Rather than a decisive blow to anti-establishment wave, as some are claiming, Macron's victory is a stop along a journey whose destination is still in question.
If the internal political disruption France and other Western countries are experiencing delivers higher and more inclusive growth, it will mark a revitalisation of liberal democracies in a pro-market fashion. If it fails, it is just a matter of time before France will be dealing with a more mainstream National Front, more inward anti-establishment forces, and greater sympathy for the view that the Eurozone is about the past and not the future. And that is an outcome that markets would find destabilising.
* Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is the chief economic adviser at Allianz and chairperson of the President’s Global Development Council, and he was chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pimco. His books include “The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability and Avoiding the Next Collapse.” This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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