‘Legal fraternity’ a target of tougher anti-graft laws

Trevor Manuel, the Finance Minister, said an internal symposium, scheduled to take place in the next few weeks, would come up with recommendations on how the department should proceed in its quest to root out corruption, says SABC News. ‘It will give us an indication on what kind of legislation we either have to tighten or introduce.’ Jabu Moleketi, his deputy, pointed to damage caused by recent scandals, such as Fidentia. Full SABC News report

Far-ranging amendments for the anti-money laundering Financial Intelligence Centre, first enabled by legislation passed in November 2001, are in the pipeline, notes a Moneyweb report. Manuel said the amendments ‘will also enhance the centre’s own monitoring powers, enabling it to conduct inspections, especially in those instances where there is no supervisory body – and here the motor-car retail industry or the legal fraternity springs to mind’. Manuel added that compliance as a whole concerned him ‘greatly’. He believed that adoption of a widespread approach to compliance ‘should lay the foundation for industry leaders to play a leadership role, in which they voluntarily adopt an attitude in which they seek to regulate themselves and their sector, but penalise those of their colleagues who operate outside established and agreed forms of conduct. Failing this, the state has to adopt a more aggressive stance’. Full Moneyweb report

Moleketi said closing regulatory gaps that ‘allow unscrupulous providers to operate will require a co-ordinated response across regulators, together with increased capacity to enforce the law substantially’. The licensing process introduced by the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS) and steps to increase the enforcement powers of the FSB are to be the first steps, Moleketi said, according to a report on the Moneyweb site. He said that all regulators and agencies involved in the financial sector, including the FSB, FAIS Ombud, the Financial Intelligence Centre and the SARS, ‘have a collective responsibility to ratchet-up their enforcement efforts’. Moleketi added that the Financial Institutions Amendment Bill to be tabled later this year ‘will seek to strengthen the FSB through the formation of an Enforcement Committee with the powers to apply administrative penalties’. Full Moneyweb report