08 October 2001
Today, as the South African Communist Party (SACP) launches its Red October Campaign to make banks serve the people, the Sowetan Newspaper reports that Standard Bank, one of the largest four banks in South Africa, is taking action to evict orphans from their parent+IBk-s house in the Ekurhuleni township of Daveyton because they cannot pay and service the home loan taken with the bank by their late parents. The parents of the four children passed away last year due to HIV/AIDS related illnesses.
This inhuman and profit-maximising action by Standard Bank shows the poverty of Standard Bank's policy on HIV/AIDS and its disregard for providing adequate finance mechanisms for poor communities. Given the HIV/AIDS pandemic in our country and its particular impact on employed workers, all financial institutions need to take measures to ensure that credit, finance and credit insurance are available to all people living with HIV/AIDS. Instead we have banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions either omitting such cover or wily-nilly discriminating against people living with HIV/AIDS.
The SACP calls on Standard Bank not to evict the children but to work on a humane and lasting solution to their plight.
This case brings to the fore once more that the majority of South African banks and other financial institutions are only interested in maximising their profits at the expense of the social development and economic growth. It is in this context that the forthcoming NEDLAC Summit on the Financial Sector must be understood. This Summit, due at the end of November, must discuss and develop a workable programme on the transformation and diversification of the financial sector as part of social development and economic growth including the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
CONTACT
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information and Publicity South African Communist Party
Tel - 011 339 3621
Cell - 082 886 3528
Email - sacp1@wn.apc.org