Major banks investigation implicates FSB
The revelation by the Competition Commission into the currency fixing by major banks exposed a litany of corruption in the financial sector that escaped the Financial Services Board (FSB) for years (‘Price-rigging’ banks face billions in fines).
It’s obvious that the banks are going to wage a protracted legal battle challenging the findings to buy time for the storm to subside.
Of course, the law allows such manoeuvrings at the cost of the litigants, despite being a foolish waste of time.
For all practical reasons, this calls for Parliament to convene a parallel process and haul the FSB before it to explain how the collusive arrangement slipped out of control on its watch.
It may come to light that the FSB was aware of the currency manipulation but members abdicated their fiduciary responsibility to raise an alarm, making it possible for the fixing practice to pass scrutiny.
From a layman’s point of view, it defeats common sense that the abuse went on for such a long time. It clearly hindered the stability of the financial system and the ability of the regulator to crack the whip in the foreign exchange market.
With all of this in mind, Parliament is duty-bound to demonstrate greater oversight in addressing and finding solutions to collusive dealings in the financial markets.
The aftermath of this process should also recommend tight regulations, with reforms to the FSB so that it can become a financial services commission with teeth, bringing it into line with the Competition Commission.
I hope the rating agencies will review previous analyses of South Africa’s credit outlook with nothing short of a disclaimer in relation to the undisclosed manipulation of the international currency markets by banks against competitors in other countries.
The point is that it’s corruption. – Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni
White identity is a product of ANC rhetoric
In So who has the right to speak about identity?, philosophy Professor Rafael Winkler expresses deep concern about the withdrawal of his white colleagues from the discourse on race and identity, which is currently limited to racism and apartheid nationalism. If I read the professor correctly, white people need to broaden the discourse.
Yet Winkler says: “White guilt is, I believe, what partly sustains this situation.” He maintains that the silence of his white colleagues expresses their white guilt. “This feeling is narcissistic,” he maintains, “and contributes to the problem.”
Why has Winkler singled out white guilt for particular mention, even though he qualifies that it only “partly” sustains the problem? Further, the guilt is narcissistic, he boldly ventures in a sweeping diagnosis.
But the ANC government has done everything in its power to keep the issues of racism and apartheid nationalism before our eyes, inculcating what further guilt they can into the white populace. They have privileged and absolutised these twin foci, invariably to secure votes.
The anger and threats directed at white people, allowed to slide by the party-state, hardly welcomes them to the discourse on identity. And, contrary to Winkler’s admirable point, authority to speak on identity and racism is preferably accorded to those who have experienced it.
I am not surprised by the silence of Winkler’s colleagues given the political and ideological climate of the country. White people are products of the ANC’s successful absolutisation of apartheid nationalism and racism as the exclusive substance of identity discourse. That discourse is severely limited and the country has painted itself into a corner.
I think Winkler recognises this. But white people on their own cannot bail out the Philosophy Scoiety of South Africa or change South Africa’s narrow perspective.
The discourse on identity is the victim of a well-orchestrated ANC government campaign over two decades. It is a peculiar contrivance that lays this problem at the door of white guilt, or chooses to single it out for mention. – Trevor Ruthenberg, Cape Town
ANC, be more like the National Party
Further to the State of the Nation farce and the present debate on “radical economic transformation” (that is, Africanisation) of that part of the economy run and owned by public or private companies, I would like to point out that the Africanisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has been a most dismal catastrophe. The SAA, the SABC, the South African Bureau of Standards, Eskom, the Road Accident Fund and the Post Office have all failed to deliver services the taxpayer has paid for.
If not officially bankrupt, they are only operational thanks to the unending benevolence of the government. If taxpayers had a say in the matter, we would sell them off to be run and managed by the private sector, which would ensure that they cease to drain the fiscus, and in turn start to make a sustainable profit.
The thought of the present ANC government trying to operate the mines as SOEs is just too terrible to contemplate.
It is a difficult industry requiring huge outlays before any income is seen, and that can be in terms of decades, not weeks.
The same holds for the imminent “transformation” of the South African construction industry, the Africanisation of which will certainly be to the sole benefit of politically connected, already wealthy, black South Africans.
When the white Nationalist Party took over the South African government in 1948, among other policies such as apartheid, they proactively promoted Afrikaner culture and business. They did not merely buy the likes of Anglo American; they started their own companies. This ensured success. Were the government to espouse a similar policy, we might see less mismanagement and waste of money. – Dr Peter C Baker, Johannesburg