Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-12

MR NAIDOO: ... able to ...(indisinct) and so on to engage in the acts, but those who helped finance the very policy makers that were able to make policies knowing that they could for example have enough as 1 million rand a day to spend in the (indistinct) Namibia as was the case of the expenditure in terms of the destabilisation, for example, against our neighbouring countries.
 Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I - I'm going to have to ask your colleague to be very very brief, because I've given you already more than the fifteen minutes that I allocated to you at the beginning.

REV DR FETZILI: Thank you very much.  Mr Chairperson and the honourable Commission, I will be brief.
 We approached the Commission fully aware that it is your intention to probe the past so as to facilitate reconciliation.  We want specifically to draw your attention to the unique nature of the problem of which brings us here, of the Apartheid debt.
 That the Apartheid debts is a unique problem since it is not only a problem of the past, but it is a problem that we are living with today and even more ominously it is a problem which is going to be carried by those who have not yet been born.
 We hold the view that really it is an immoral thing to ask those whom you have offend - the children whom you have offend by taking away the privilege of their parents to carry the debt and this is what the Apartheid debt in simple does.
 The case of Apartheid debt as we say is particularly more troubling, because it is 95 percent domestic as the documentation before you will remind you.
 It is owed to South African banks and commercial institutions in large and another part to the Government itself.
 Our problem in this and we hope that you can use the opportunity when you meet, the banking fraternity in South Africa.  Our problem is that this institutions even as we speak today, continue to make profit out of that which they did in the '80'2 and so that is why we really think that this is a very serious and it's a very sad thing.
 The least we expect from them, even as they parade before you saying they wish they could have done better, is to (indistinct) specifically.  In that case, what can they do, with respect, to the profit they're continuing to get out of the - the close to 20 percent which is used to service the debt annually.
 Think of the number of classrooms we cannot build, think of the pension fund we cannot increase, because close to one fifth of the budget has to go to that.  So we are saying if there is a single thing of the relic of the past which casts a dark shade on the new South Africa and which will continue even in the future;  it is the Apartheid debt.
 Mr Chairman, all we are saying is, if there is one thing which is going to roll over and withdraw all the success and progress we've made, it is the Apartheid debt and we approach together with the coalition of NGO's approach this Commission, hoping that at last the crime which was done by funding, by oiling the Apartheid machine, which was done by the business sector which we're reminded here that their business is to make profits at all cost.
 We hope that through this Commission one day this issue, this crime will have its day in court before you and that they will for the last time answer why they did that and what they wished to do so that that burden is not carried by the future generations in South Africa.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Dr Boraine?

DR BORAINE: Thank you, Chairperson.  This is a very serious matter and it is also a very complicated one which you know far more of than we do.
 You will know that we received your submission quite a lot earlier and so we've had a quite a lot of time to think about it and study it.  Some of us, anyway.
 Let me acknowledge that the, I think the 300 billion debt burden and the 39 billion interest annually is of - should be of huge consequence to all South Africans.  The problem as I'm sure you are aware of much more than I is that of this debt as you rightly point out, only five percent is to foreign investors and frankly that's the least of problems.
 I think we could persuade our people to wipe that debt out and this is not something that only South Africa is looking at, but many many countries in Africa and other parts of the world and I think there's a generous view of this amongst many institutions of the world.
 Our problem is the one that you've identified so clearly and as you know and perhaps I should emphasize the laws governing pension funds are very very strict and very difficult.
 Let me say that we recall the and you make reference to it, that when the African National Congress who enjoys majority in Parliament actually referred us to this and seemed to be very committed to doing exactly what you are placing before us;  it seems to me that it would help us if you could bring us up to date as to what the Government's attitude is right now, because frankly it is they, principally more than anyone else who can implement the very recommendations that you are making.
 We in turn will obviously be making recommendations, but those will be at the end of the life of this Commission and I would have thought that this matter is so urgent for all of us that action should be a lot sooner than that.
 So, perhaps you could - my question therefore is;  what is the status of the Minister of Finance, the cabinet, the Government's position regarding this whole question?