Parliament’s Finance Committee has heard that banks have closed the accounts of people based on the colour of their skin. Advocate Tiny Seboko, representing Gardee Godrich Attorneys, told the committee that one of their clients had their accounts closed because of a relationship they had with a certain individual. However, the committee could not discuss the details of the matter as it is sub judice.
Following revelations of the Gupta brothers’ involvement in state capture-related activities, major banks in the country closed their bank accounts and those of their businesses.
The banks have done the same with the accounts of Sekunjalo owned by Iqbal Surve. Sekunjalo has taken the matter to the Equality Court. They have been joined in this case by Gardee Gordrich Attorneys on behalf of a number of their clients.
“The first applicant is a woman who is a state employee in the EC whose account was terminated without knowledge. The second one is an individual sole proprietor of a business in the KZN region. And his own personal bank account of those of his business was shut down without any knowledge. The bank account of one of the political parties, Democracy In Action also suffered the same fate. No notification. In the case of the DIA bank account the allegations is that the banks accuse the political party of allegiance to a certain individual in the country,” says Advocate Seboko.
Nikiwe Nyathi from the same law firm said the one thing that connects their clients is their race.
“The common denominator amongst our clients is that they are black persons and that is the basis that we joined in the action in the equality court on the basis of discrimination. More than that is having the courts recognise that without a banking facility because not only one bank closes down these accounts it follows that all major banks do the same thing. And the result of that on any person is that they are not able to continue with their lives or any part of their lives. They are not able to hold a bond. In fact, in many of these cases our clients have had their children’s bank accounts closed merely on the basis that they are associated with that person,” Nyathi says.
Some committee members were of the view that discussing the matter was inappropriate as it is before the courts. Dr Dion George of the DA explains, “This appears to be a matter before the courts. I am just wondering why we are going into this matter in the committee given that it is before the courts. That is not our function. So I am just a little confused about that.”
In the end, the committee could not go into the merits of the cases as members agreed that the matter is subjudice. Committee chairperson, Joe Maswanganyi was, however, not happy with the subjudice argument.
“We are an elected body. If members of the public approach this body and say we have an issue that we believe parliament should attend to, we can’t close the doors of parliament and say go to court we can’t attend to you. When they elected us we never said don’t elect us your issues will be attended to by the judiciary. We can’t always outsource issues that we have to deal with to another part of government which is the judiciary,” says Maswanganyi.
