Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport, Ismail Vadi, announced over the weekend that his department has cancelled the registration certificates of two private vehicle testing stations in Soweto and Pretoria due to alleged fraudulent and corrupt practices in connection with the issuing of roadworthy certificates.
The 2018 Financial Secrecy Index, an initiative of the Tax Justice Network, reveals that the world’s most important providers of financial secrecy harbouring looted assets are mostly not small, palm-fringed islands as many suppose, but rather, they’re some of the world’s biggest and wealthiest countries.
The state-owned Bank of Baroda of India played a crucial role in the financial machinations of the politically influential Gupta family, allowing them to move hundreds of millions of dollars originating in alleged dirty deals into offshore accounts, an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Project and The Hindu has found. South African financial institution Nedbank was also found to have played an indirect role in the scandal – the bank has denied any wrongdoing.
It is widely believed that the general standard of leadership and performance of the country’s state-owned enterprises deteriorated over the period of the administration of former president Jacob Zuma. His newly-inaugurated successor Cyril Ramaphosa plans to change this situation, and in his recent state of the nation address, announced what many hope is just the first set of measures which will restore the country’s SOEs to their former efficiency.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has withdrawn the appeal, lodged by Jacob Zuma, against a judgment which found that Zuma was too conflicted to appoint or suspend the national director of public prosecutions and that the deputy president should perform that task. The judgment related to a case brought by Corruption Watch, Freedom Under Law, and the Council for the Advancement of the South African COnstitution.
Africa in general did not do too well on the Corruption Perceptions Index, released last week by Transparency International. However, despite being the worst performing region as a whole, Africa has several countries that consistently push back against corruption, and with notable progress. And there are a number of African countries that scored better than some European countries – so with 2018 being the AU’s year of fighting corruption, a good platform has been set for this task.
Major gaps between South African and Namibian legislation that regulates the endangered species trade allowed for the sale of at least 13 white rhino bulls from a South African game park to a Russian big game hunting outfit in Namibia. Nine of these rhinos were found to have died. Scandal-beset South African businessman Christo Wiese was involved in the deal, which shows that it’s often easier for wealthy individuals with privileged access to bend rules than adhere to regulations designed to protect endangered species.
Corruption Watch is in court today to demand that the decision of the CEO of the South African Social Services Agency (Sassa) to pay R317-million to Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) be set aside, and that CPS be compelled to pay back this amount. The hearing in the North Gauteng High Court is yet another example of Sassa being taken to court for administrative irregularities involving the payment of millions of taxpayers’ money to a private company.
Transparency International released its 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index today. South Africa’s score of 43 represents a drop of two points from 45 in 2016 – a marginal shift, it may seem, but the number is less important than the downward direction of change. We had exactly the same score five years ago and, while it has wavered over the years between 42 and 45, it signals a lack of progress in improving our standing in a global context, in spite of ramped-up efforts to expose perpetrators.