During the last decade, Russia has expanded its interests and presence in Africa. With sanctions and other measures imposed on Russian elites because of the war in Ukraine, the African continent could, as a result, end up in one of two possible scenarios. Either Russian operations in Africa could scale down because of decreased funding – or the Russian footprint in Africa could increase.
The US is now the world’s secrecy capital, according to the 2022 Financial Secrecy Index, released on 16 May by the Tax Justice Network. African countries, on the other hand, for the most part managed to improve their financial transparency standing, although South Africa was one of the four out of 18 assessed which did not.
Corruption in African urban development can lead to dysfunctional infrastructure that does not meet public needs, writes UTC’s Laura Nkula-Wenz. It also hardwires injustice into city systems for decades to come. To counter this type of corruption, legal reforms of outdated planning laws, public service reforms, and greater transparency in procurement processes will be necessary, as will individual behaviour change.
The South African police is staffed by people who come from the very communities where their friends and loved ones live, writes Corruption Watch’s Melusi Ncala – yet they perpetrate acts of brutality and gross abuse of power against those same communities. “We cannot continue as usual – soliciting and paying bribes and believing that brutal actions will rid us from our social problems.”
The struggle for freedom in Africa all too often has morphed into struggle for attaining and holding onto power, says Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now. This means that services like basic education are compromised, and too few children make it to matric, or leave school without the skills and knowledge that would make them employable. Too many languish in unemployment. Too many do not even have a school to go to. All due to corruption.
Corruption Watch has put out a call for research and policy papers in relation to its Project Larona, an initiative that aims to help address income and wealth inequality related to land rights, land reform, and access to land resources. Download the full research brief here.
The office of the Auditor-General is already at work on its task of conducting real-time audits on the funds that have been allocated for disaster relief following devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Last week Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke briefed the parliamentary Standing Committee on the Auditor-General on the steps her office will follow in ensuring the relief funds are used for the intended purpose.
The South African government does not have an illustrious track record of implementation of its plans and strategies. It therefore cannot, and should not, be solely responsible for the establishment of a beneficial ownership register and the accompanying legal framework, but a multi-stakeholder approach with civil society and the private sector will make all the difference.
South Africa cannot be counted among the numerous countries that are experiencing problems with beneficial ownership transparency (BOT), because it is capable of telling a good story in this regard. This was one of the messages that came out of the high-level panel discussion at last week’s BOT conference, held in Cape Town.