Grace Nene is a 53-year-old woman who has worked hard all her life. She has raised three of her own children and many others in her extended family on meagre wages earned as a domestic worker. She is a single parent and a sole breadwinner.
In February this year her mother died and her culture requires that she should give her mother a dignified funeral. She takes a loan of R8 500, on top of an account for furniture she has been paying off since 2011. She agrees to pay it off in 24 months. The loan doubles with the heavy interest, insurance, and initiation fees, and grows to just under R16 400. The burden is too great and within six months she is forced to approach a business, which promises to take over the debt and reduce her monthly payments, but it doesn't come cheap and more debt is added to her already unmanageable load.
Grace is not alone in this situation. There are millions more like her, caught up in spiralling debt who are then at the mercy of unscrupulous loan sharks.
I pose this question to the House: What more can we do to control the excesses of the loan sharks and help the Grace Nenes to understand how the world of credit works. [Applause.]