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Recently the National Credit Regulator ( NCR ) asked Debt Counsellors to make comments on the code of conduct for Debt counsellors which was originally produced by the Debt Counsellors Association of South Africa (DCASA). There was a lot of conflict from non DCASA Debt Counsellors in regard to the proposed code of conduct. Eventually the NCR sent out the proposed code of conduct to Debt Counsellors and told them to sign it or…they would tell people they had not signed it on their website.

Recently with the demise of the VDMS project proposed by BASA and the National Debt Mediation Association the NCR has been taking a strong look at all things involving the NDMA it seems. Included in this is the Debt Counselling Code of conduct. The code as it stands call for Debt Counsellors to excluded some types of consumers from applying for debt review and to only try take on cases where consumers are wealthy enough to make proposals that will solve through software developed/managed by the NDMA.

In a recent survey on the topic the question has come up: should the NDMA be done away with. This might relate back to the recent letter submitted to the NCR by Debt Counsellor Deborah Solomons who questioned the legal formation of the NDMA.

While in the past the NDMA has helped consumers and Debt Counsellors to try get their member creditors to cooperate with debt review, they have recently begun speaking poorly of debt review. In particular the NDMA have been talking about the legal costs which arise when creditors do not want to cooperate with the process. The fact that these costs come up only when large creditors try squeeze more money out of consumers that they obviously do not have has however been swept under the rung in these press statements by the NDMA. This is creating a biased view of debt review in the public mind and Debt Counsellors are quickly losing faith in the NDMA and it’s intentions.

It now seems the NCR might be thinking of going a step further than stopping the NDMA from cloning the debt review process and now might be questioning the existence of the NDMA.