Court threat over Zuma anti-graft Bill delay

The Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution has written to President Jacob Zuma, asking that he sign the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment (Fica) Bill immediately, failing which the organisation will take him to the Constitutional Court to force his hand, says a Business Day report. Corruption Watch has threatened to follow suit as the Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF) ups the ante in its opposition to the Bill. PPF president Mzwanele Manyi said the PPF would decide whether to contest the Bill in the Constitutional Court once it had studied the final version signed by the President. Zuma has had almost two months to sign the Bill that was re-adopted by Parliament at the end of February and which is required for South Africa to meet its international commitments to the Financial Action Task Force. These include instituting measures to strengthen the fight against money-laundering and the financing of terrorism as provided for in the Bill. If South Africa does not get the Fica Bill on its statute books by June, it could be declared delinquent by the task force, creating difficulties for South Africa’s banks in their relationships with foreign banks. Such relationships are vital to effect payment for imports and exports. The first deadline in February was missed. Observers said there was no reason for Zuma’s long delay as he only had to satisfy himself on the single issue of warrantless searches and not the Bill in its entirety, which he had considered previously. ‘The time is completely reasonable for the President to have signed the Bill by now,’ Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis said.