Bill to nationalise the Reserve Bank faces public scrutiny

THE public has until midday on Monday to make written submissions and indications for oral submission when the finance standing committee holds a public hearing to amend the law governing the central bank this week.

 The bill, a private member’s first introduced in Parliament by EFF leader Julius Malema, seeks to amend the SARB Act to make the State the sole shareholder of the shares in the bank.

The Parliament programme shows that the Standing Committee on Finance will hold public hearings on the South African Reserve Bank Amendment Bill in a virtual meeting platform on Wednesday.

The hearing comes after members of the public, stakeholders and stakeholders were given an opportunity to comment on the SARB amendment bill until June 30.

The bill was first introduced in Parliament in August 2018, but it lapsed in May 2019 during the end of the sixth Parliament only to be revived in October the same year.

In 2020, the EFF and the parliamentary legal services had briefed the standing committee on finance on the bill and conducted a first round of public hearings, which were held in November 2018.

But, the bill lapsed four years later in May 2024 in the sixth Parliament and then got revived again in July 2024.

After the EFF pushed for the bill to be on the parliamentary programme for consideration in the new administration, the standing committee on finance resolved in September last year to conduct a second round of public hearings after it was briefed by the Parliamentary Budget Office on its analysis and assessment of the bill’s socio-economic impact

The bill, in its current form, seeks to delete certain definitions in SARB Act and provide for the appointment of certain board of directors by the Minister of Finance.

"A current director of the bank or any member of the general public may nominate persons to serve as appointed directors of the bank in the manner as may be prescribed," reads the bill, adding that appointed board directors shall hold office for three years.

The bill proposes that the State should be sole shareholder of shares in the SARB.

“The rights attached to the shares in the bank must be exercised by the Minister on behalf of the State."

The SARB's shareholders were 650 when the bill was introduced in Parliament.

The bill also provides that the Minister shall appoint two firms of public accounts to act as auditors of the SARB for every financial year.

Cape Times