House Chairperson, I would like now to address the Chief Whip of the Opposition, the DA, with your kind permission. I am disappointed that the DA has decided to vote against this Bill. This Bill is complex, but it is not politically contentious. The process by which we reached this stage has taken a long time. You will recall that the Bill was first referred to the committee in November last year. The committee held public hearings on the Bill on 23 March this year. In April, the committee agreed to a sensible proposal from the hon Kilian to include the National Treasury in all its deliberations. In total, the committee spent 10 weeks examining the provisions of the Bill and on amending it.
In all this time, the DA did not once indicate that this Bill was undesirable or that it should be processed by the Finance committee. [Interjections.] If it had made that suggestion, the committee would have made arrangements earlier for conferring fully with the Portfolio Committee on Finance. So, this came as a total surprise to us when in the last week, in the last meeting of the committee, the DA expressed its intention to vote against this Bill. I do believe that this is a vote against the poor and downtrodden in our society. [Applause.] [Interjections.]
It is my hope that the Postbank becomes as successful as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which uses microloans without collateral, to help eradicate poverty in developing countries. It has now opened a branch in the United States, called Grameen America. It offers loans from $500 to $3000 to vendors who borrow money daily to rent carts to sell their wares, or to a hair salon owner who needs cash to buy shampoo. One of the first persons to whom it disbursed a loan is Socorro Diaz. Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.]