THE THICK END OF THE WEDGE
THE THICK END OF THE WEDGE: Collusion: time, surely, for a suit in a cell
The forex collusion charges put the banks on the spot in a way the Gupta/Zuma alliance could barely have imagined in their wildest dreams, writes Peter Bruce
Competition commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele is not in the employ of the Guptas; and from what I have seen him write, he is not someone upon whose vote Jacob Zuma could rely. He is an authoritative, engaged and determined regulator, exactly the new-model South African public servant we need. So when he brings, as he did on Wednesday, grave and detailed charges of foreign exchange collusion against 16 banks trading the rand against the US dollar, take him seriously. And if you’re the boss of Standard Bank, Absa or Investec (the local banks involved), you know you may have compromised and weakened your industry in arguably its greatest hour of need in 20 years. Yet this is what I read on the front page of Business Day on Thursday as it reported the charges: "A spokesman for Investec said it would co-operate with the competition authorities. ‘Unfortunately, at this stage, we still do not have further details with respect to the nature of the investigation and are, thus, not able to com...
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