The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance (Scof) has extended to 25 October the deadline for submitting comments on the omnibus bill aimed at preventing South Africa’s grey-listing next year.
On Tuesday, the committee attended to presentations by stakeholders on the General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing) Amendment Bill. The bill amends the Trust Property Control Act, Non-profit Organisations Act, Financial Intelligence Centre Act, Companies Act and Financial Sector Regulation Act.
The committee announced on 27 September that the deadline to submit comments to the Scof was noon on 10 October. Treasury’s statement to this effect was published on 4 October.
On Tuesday, the JSE and several non-profit organisations (NPOs) expressed their dissatisfaction with the very limited time allowed for public consultation on the bill.
They said they have not had enough time to consult their constituencies and draw up submissions that properly address the details of the proposed legislation.
Members of the committee agreed that stakeholders should be given more time to submit additional commentary. Concerns were expressed that the bill could be challenged in the Constitutional Court if the public participation process was found wanting.
Late on Tuesday, the committee sent out a notification that the new deadline is 4pm on Tuesday, 25 October.
Earlier, the committee’s chairperson, Joseph Maswanganyi (ANC), told the meeting that the Scof would amend its programme so that it meets more often during the week to process the bill. This would be a challenge, because some Scof members also belonged to two or three other committees.
The NPOs said the bill’s provisions were onerous, and the Department of Social Development did not have the capacity to handle the compulsory registration of NPOs or to check whether NPOs were being used to facilitate financial crimes.
Vukile Davidson, National Treasury’s chief director of financial policy, said there may be a way to address some of the issues that have been raised without causing “massive delays” in processing the legislation.
He said Treasury would engage urgently with the NPO sector to deal with its concerns, which included constitutionality and proportionality.
Treasury believed there was “a path and middle ground that we can navigate to reach an outcome that would address the concerns about the proportionality of the clauses, as well as achieve what is in our common interest of making sure that the financial system is not used to facilitate the financing of terrorism or money laundering”.
