An Analytical Precis of Debt Relief Measures under the Insolvency Act 24 of 19361

Most poor and low-income earners are over-indebted since they rely too much on credit for their dayto- day consumer needs in South Africa. Owing to this, debt relief measures have become so important in the current South African credit driven society. Accordingly, there are four statutory debt relief measures that are available to over-indebted persons and insolvent debtors in South Africa, namely, the sequestration proceedings in terms of the Insolvency Act 24 of 1936 as amended (Insolvency Act), the administration order under the Magistrates Courts Act 32 of 1944 as amended (Magistrates Courts Act), the debt review that is contained in the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 as amended (NCA) and the recently introduced debt intervention in terms of the National Credit Amendment Act 7 of 2019 (Credit Amendment Act), which is yet to be successfully utilised. Despite these commendable efforts, most of the available debt relief measures are not yet easily accessible to the poor and low-income earners in South Africa. Given this background, the article discusses the sequestration proceedings as a debt relief measure in terms of the Insolvency Act. This is done to explore the strengths and weaknesses of such proceedings in relation to their accessibility and provision of debt relief measures to the poor and low-income earners in South Africa.