Debtfree Magazine January 2018

Though a lot of people are very interested in the prospect of some consumers
not having to repay their debts, this is not the intention of the Bill. The
idea is to get the NCR to help low income consumers who currently do
not benefit from debt review due to the NCR set fee structures for the
industry. Many of these consumers are not advertised to because of the
low financial return for Debt Counsellors and the relatively large workload
involved in helping them. The Portfolio Committee thinks that the NCR will
be able to assist where thousands of registered Debt Counsellors and their
companies have held back in the past.
Concerns have been raised that the NCR, and by extension the NCT, does
not realistically have even partial capacity for any such debt relief measures.
Another aspect of the draft Bill would see every credit act entering debt
review scrutinized for reckless credit and potentially hundreds of thousands
of possible cases of reckless credit reported to the NCR and courts to
investigate. Failing to report possible cases could see Debt Counsellors
get into serious trouble and face fines or worse. There are concerns about
the ability of credit providers to supply the needed documentation on
every credit agreement entering debt review, and capacity at the NCR