22 March 2023
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) presented its submission on the Financial Matters Amendment (FMA) Bill to Parliament’s Standing Committee: Finance’s hearings.
COSATU welcomes the overall thrust of the FMA Bill and in particular the following key amendments to the:
- Military Pensions Act to recognise the rights and status of SANDF personnel’s life partners. This is key to ensuring that SANDF members’ life partners and their dependents are not disadvantaged when seeking to access what is due to them in the event of the member’s passing away or during separations and the subsequent disposal of assets.
- Associated Institutions Pension Fund Act and the Temporary Employees Pensions Fund Act to ensure that their members are entitled to the same rights and protections as members of the Government Employees Pension Fund. This is critical to protecting workers and members of such funds and to avoid a repeat of previous instances when fund members of Transnet and Bophuthatswana Pension Funds’ rights were violated by unscrupulous fund managers.
- Government Employees Pension Act to ensure its members are covered by the clean break principle when undergoing divorce and separation of asset proceedings. This is important for women and children in financially dependent and/ or abusive relationships to begin to start a new life as quickly as possible.
- Auditing Profession Act to institute disciplinary proceedings against auditors who fail to uphold their fiduciary duties. This is a positive step forward to ensure auditors play their role in scrutinising the finances of companies and institutions they are hired to audit, and to hold those who fail to do so accountable. However, it does not go far enough. Parliament needs to use this moment to further strengthen the Auditing Profession Act to require the automatic rotation of auditing firms and auditors every 5 years. This is key to tackling the often incestuous relationship that exists between some auditors and the companies they are paid to audit. Such auditors choose to cover up illegal activities in order to ensure the extension of their often lucrative contracts.
Issued by COSATU
For further information please contact:
Matthew Parks
Parliamentary Coordinator
Cell: 082 785 0687
Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za