Concerns over rand manipulation penalties

Legal expert Mpumelelo Zikalala and Organisation Against Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage have expressed concern about a fine imposed against a bank that admitted to participating in the rand manipulation. This follows the Competition Commission’s revelation that 28 banks generated about a trillion rand a day through manipulating the rand between 2007 and 2013. Of the 28 implicated banks, five have admitted the offence while others have approached the court seeking a review of the commission’s findings. The Sunday Tribune reports that Zikalala said it was unfortunate that UK-based multinational bank Standard Chartered got away with a fine of R42.7m after admitting to the offence. Duvenage called for tougher action. Zikalala said this kind of corruption should not be taken lightly because there was a possibility that it might have caused serious irreparable damage as it may have affected interest rates, which mostly relied on the strength of the rand. ‘The weaker rand would lead to inflation being increased, which would then affect ordinary taxpayers. So if you manipulate the rand, you are then saying the ordinary person on the street would have to pay more than what he should have paid, not just because the market conditions are detecting that but because someone did it for profit generation,’ said Zikalala.

Full Sunday Tribune report