Khaya Sithole | Ithala Bank's last stand: Can legislative reform save the day?

As one bank teeters on the brink of extinction and another threatens to come alive – the role of lethargic lawmakers once again looms large.

Conceptualising and formulating laws in South Africa is a notoriously laborious and lethargic process whose best underlying intentions – canvassing the inputs of all affected stakeholders in order to address all the dimensions of the public interest – can be undermined by slow procedural gridlocks. The need to canvass the widest range of stakeholder inputs is premised on the need to ensure that laws that ultimately bind the nation at large represent the diverse and divergent interests of citizens in order to lend legitimacy to the laws. When stakeholder interests conflict and diverge as they are bound to do in a country as polarised and fragmented as ours; it is inevitable that the laws will reflect a blend of consensus elements and the occasional aspect that represents the core ideological persuasions of those with enough electoral muscle to ultimately pass the law. Consequently, some laws will be passed that contain provisions that sound like the implementation of an ideological position of a party rather than being exclusively a reflection of the public interest.