Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-12

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Taki.  Dr Boraine?

MR TAKI: It sounds as though they're quite relieved.  I hope they will continue to be.

DR BORAINE: I must thank you very much for your presentation, for the longer presentation which we've had an opportunity of reading through and for your specific contribution here today.
 Let me start by where you ended as a way of getting into something that I want to ask you about.  You've stressed the importance of the individual and I accept that entirely.
 One of the problems that our country has experienced is not only the actions or inaction of individuals, but of specific structures designed by individuals, certainly, but structures which of themselves inhibited development.
 You've mentioned some of them.  So, I just want to put that in that context, because institutions can play and often do play a very positive or very negative role.  Let me illustrate that by saying that there is a perception, not saying it is the correct one, that in the Banking Industry, broadly, that certainly in the past, the perception was that if you stuck your neck you got it chopped off.  
 So there's a danger, isn't there, of a - and you may have some personal experience of that.  I'm not sure, but there's a danger of individuals trying to act without the structures themselves being changed.  I suppose it's like critics of much of what business and opposition politicians and many of us who played various different roles;  that all we were doing was polishing the chains of the oppressed.
 So, what I'm saying is that at the hearts of our nation there are institutions which determines its health or its sickness and one of the reasons why this Commission is looking at institutions, whether they be political or media or banking or commerce, generally, is not because we haven't enough to do, but simply because we think that institutions have a very important role to play.
 Now, from your presentation, if you look at page three of today's presentation;  you actually two fairly breath taking paragraphs and I refer to the fourth paragraph and fifth paragraphs of page three.
"You now have a wholly South African owned bank or banking system and the banks responded by making loans to import substitution, including the armour mints industry, the atomic energy commission, a variety of parastatals, the central and homeland governments.
It is understandable and this is my question to you, including the sanctions busting which I'll refer - come back to in a moment;  is it reasonable to say that bearing this in mind it would be understandable, not necessarily correct, but understandable if the Black community saw the Banking Institutions as being no better or no worse than the institutions which they felt abound them in their Apartheid system?

MR TAKI: I don't think there's much debate about the correctness of your reference.  There are very substantial perceptual problems of the Banking Industry, the role which it played in the past, the role which it can play in the future.
 It's one of the things and obviously it requires substantial changes in behaviour and institutional behaviour within the banks themselves, but it is also going to be a really tough job to change the perceptions.
 At the end of the day, we only have one Banking Industry and that is the life blood of this economy.  So the real issue is not can we kick out the existing cardiovascular system and get another one.  The issue is how do we get this cardiovascular system to serve the needs of the new South Africa.
 That is a combination of changes in the way that things are being done, what is done and simultaneously changing perceptions, because unless the perceptions simultaneously change, that system doesn't work effectively.

DR BORAINE: May I say that looking at the proposal that you have for the future, many of which you have already started.  That's just the best way to change perceptions.  So I am very grateful for the pointing ahead than rather only looking at the past and trying to tinker with that machine.
 So I'm very grateful and I'm also grateful for the expression of regret, not because we are looking for people to come and say sorry and all the rest.  That's not part of it, but I think that Arch Bishop Tutu is right;  that that attitude releases a spirit of co-operation and generosity from those who have been badly hurt.
 I think without that there is still a sense of they haven't really changed.  They don't really mean it.  So I'm grateful to you for that public and to you, obviously, to the people that you represent ... (intervention).

MR TAKI: Could I just give you the assurance;  that's not me.  That is the Industry, very much so.  Thank you.

DR BORAINE: I'll put before the Commission in another hearing and you can appreciate, we get a wealth of information, some of which is correct, some of which is totally wrong, but we've got to try and sort it all out.
 The best way to do it is to find out by asking people concerned, but it's very vague, so I hesitate to ask it, but I think I must, because it was stated on the record and in public.
 So I can quote his name.  Craig Williams, who on his own public admission was a fairly prominent double agent for the state, he in his submission argues that it was wrong for people to blame people like himself and others and foot soldiers in the army, the security forces;  that Apartheid was a system which was encouraged, was taught right throughout society.
 I think he has a point, but amongst the things he said was even the banking systems gave me false credit cards as part of our under cover work and our cover and our under cover false companies.
 We received the full co-operation from the banks.  Now, he didn't specify which bank.  That was very vague, but is this, I mean, I've looked at your paragraph on page five when you actually say;  illegally taking or using money out of the country and still today, etcetera;  is that at all possible?

MR TAKI: I'm obviously ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Dr, sorry, can I just add one other bit from the chair here.  We've also had a number of statements from activists in the '80's who talk about being arrested as they withdrew money from banks, either when they put their card in or when going to the till, implying that there was some co-operation with those banks at the time.

MR TAKI: I'm completely unable to comment on the specifics.  You have this difficulty, if I can stick with the analogy of the cardiovascular system and if anyone pays with a credit card the only thing that I can guarantee that the credit card was issued by a bank and that banks have been processed the paper and I have no doubt that Craig William had a credit card.
 Whether a bank was a party to - whether a bank was a party to, here is my third or fourth ID document under a false name and please can I have a credit card under that false name?  I'm obviously completely unable to comment, but you know the reality of life in South Africa is that it would not surprise me. 
 You're actually talking about a very substantial body of people, the banks staff.  There are a total of about a 150 000 bank staff and it would be completely out of the control of a chief executive that that sort of thing didn't happen.
 So it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case, but I'm under, quite obviously, quite unable to comment on the specifics.
 When I say that the banks are being illegally used for taking money out of the country and that is a problem world wide.  That is why we have a money laundering act or we need a money laundering act, is because the system is used by the entire population to do whatever they want to do and it would be wonderful if you could actually police it.
 The Australians have gone quite a long way to building a computer system which can police it quite substantially.  We are in a 20 years of having such a system.