Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

3-minute read
10 December 2023 | 16:24 CAT

Image: Pixabay.com

African National Congress (ANC) Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has described the recent rand manipulation saga as sheer criminality.

The investigation, dating back to 2013, resurfaced last month after UK banking giant Standard Chartered admitted to having played a hand in manipulating the rand.

Briefing the media at Luthuli House in Johannesburg yesterday, Mbalula said that all bank executives involved in the rand minipulation must be held personally liable.

“The rand manipulation was a crime of corruption and we must call things by their first names. Corruption in the private sector is still corruption. And its consequences are just as severe,” Mbalula said.

The Competition Commission believes 28 banks were part of a movement to manipulate the rand between 2007 and 2013 – where traders from different banks would share information in chat rooms, using the rand in favour of the banks.

According to Mbalula, the ANC wants the directors and executives of the implicated banks to face prosecution in their capacity and be held personally responsible for “the detriment they inflicted on our economy”.

He said this act is nothing short of a crime against the people of South Africa and that the fines the banks paid “pales in comparison to the damage wrought on our economy”. He added that “the full extent of this criminal manipulation of our currency, particularly its impact on the poorest among us, is yet to be fully realized and acknowledged”.

Meanwhile, Independent Economic, Energy, and Political Analyst Tshepo Kgadima reiterates Mbalula’s characterizing this as a ‘corrupt and criminal’ act.

However, Kgadima argues that beyond that said, everything else Mbalula said is simply rhetoric with no course or effect.

“The crime of rand manipulation has been going on for more than 20 years. The effects on the ordinary people are devastating, with the majority of South Africans living under $1 a day,” he said.

Listen to the full interview on The Daily Round-Up with Moulana Junaid Kharsany.