We are asked to amend legislation to save the very same banks that continue to play a role in facilitating some financial crimes, including illicit financial flows. Must Parliament now change the legislation so that we can continue to protect white capital monopoly, while the poor and working South Africans are exposed to high, unsecured lending practices of loans they cannot afford?
The EFF has made an unequivocal call on what South Africa must do with banks, including the Reserve Bank. State intervention to failing banks must not be the appointment of curators, but outright nationalisation. Banks and other strategic sectors of the economy can only be transformed through a radical change of ownership and control, and we will continue to call for this.
The state must take up greater responsibility, intervention, ownership and control of the Reserve Bank, given its strategic role in our economy. It is then that we can start engaging in a constructive and meaningful debate on the value of exchange controls to ensure that multinationals doing business in South Africa will start complying with the country's legislation to stop the looting through illicit financial flows. The Banks Amendment Bill is not in the public's interest and therefore the EFF rejects it. Thank you.