The ANC welcomes the signing into law of the National Credit Amendment Bill into law by the President of the country. This is in line with our objectives of addressing the most significant obstacles that limit the pace of economic growth and intervening in favour of a more equitable growth path biased towards the poor and marginalised.
This is a Committee Bill initiated following the concern by the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry that the current debt relief measures such as sequestration, debt administration and debt review mechanism do not cover the poor with low income. However, these measures exclude poor and low-income debtors.
The main object of this Act is to provide debt relief measures to poor South Africans who earn less than R7 500.00 per month, whose unsecured debt is not more than R50 000.00 and are over indebted.