Seychelles hosts meeting of legal experts of Central Banks in SADC region |26 July 2017

Legal and economic experts of Central Banks of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region met in Seychelles at the beginning of this week for their annual meeting.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Seychelles, Caroline Abel, officially opened the deliberations of the legal sub-committee of the Committee of Central Bank Governors (CCBG) of the SADC region on Monday morning at the Savoy Seychelles Resort.

This meeting is held annually and has for its main aim the harmonisation of laws that will ultimately add value to and facilitate trade within the SADC region.

In her opening remarks, Governor Abel noted that “the task of harmonising laws of any group of countries is a demanding task” but that “despite these challenges, the SADC Committee of Central Bank Governors has managed to find areas of common ground to allow us to move forward as a community”.

In an interview with the press following the opening ceremony, the chairman of the SADC CCBG legal sub-committee, Webster Madera from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, highlighted some of the common grounds, including the Central Bank Model Law, which has been approved by the CCBG and is currently being incorporated within the local laws of the respective countries, as well as the SIRESS Payment System, which will facilitate payment within SADC countries.

Another important issue discussed is the mainstreaming of the principle of what is referred to as a “cooling-off period”. Governor Abel explained to the press that for Seychelles, this is an important issue, as it has to do with a set period of time that a governor or other senior officers of a Central Bank has to stay out of employment in the financial sector after leaving their post.

“The employment market in Seychelles is very small and we really have to consider the constitutional right of a person to employment, while ensuring that no financial institution receives an unfair advantage over others by employing a former Central staff who has just left the post and who is in possession of critical information with regard to the financial sector in Seychelles,” said Ms Abel.

The SADC CCBG legal sub-committee meeting ended yesterday.