Godsell calls for national debate on garnishee orders

Business Leadership SA chairman Bobby Godsell has called for a national debate on garnishee orders.

Sake24 reported that ff he were a mining manager he would have refused to deduct garnishee orders, the former AngloGold Ashanti CEO said at an Investing in Resources and Mining in Africa conference in Johannesburg.

"I would have said, sorry Capitec, or whoever, I am not your debt collector -- you granted that debt, go and collect it yourself," the business section of Afrikaans daily Beeld quoted Godsell as having said.

"I think there should be a national debate over garnishee orders."

Several media have reported that high debt levels among mineworkers could have played a role in unrest at Lonmin's platinum mining operations at Marikana near Rustenburg in North West last year, which ended in the deaths of 44 people.

A garnishee order is a court order requiring employers to deduct money owed from salaries on behalf of a creditor before the salaries are paid.