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SA launches third OGP national action plan

The Open Government Partnership was launched in 2011 to provide an international platform that will enable domestic reformers to make their governments more open, accountable, responsive to citizens, and corruption-free. Since then, OGP has grown from the eight founding countries of Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, the UK and the US, to 69 countries. In Read more >

SA commits to tackling beneficial ownership

As part of this week’s meeting of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Cape Town, South Africa today launched its third national action plan (NAP) which includes a high-level commitment to creating a public register of beneficial ownership information. Corruption Watch, as a participant in Transparency International’s (TI) Unmask the Corrupt campaign, has been calling Read more >

TI calls for immediate action against secret companies

A global investigation, involving some 400 journalists from 80 countries, into the use of secret companies by the rich, powerful and corrupt has shown how a network of lawyers, bankers and others around the world hide illicit wealth. Transparency International (TI) calls on the international community to act immediately to adopt transparency laws to outlaw secret Read more >

SA falls short of measures to curb corrupt financial flows

In its report released to coincide with the upcoming G20 meeting in Turkey, Transparency International (TI) has highlighted how G20 countries, including South Africa, have failed to honour their undertaking to fight corruption through implementing more transparent business practices that would make it difficult for the corrupt to hide or move money across borders. This Read more >

G20 drops ball on beneficial ownership

The G20 has not delivered on promises to tackle issues of beneficial ownership – this is revealed in a report released on Thursday by Transparency International. In November 2014 the G20 countries – of which South Africa is one – met in Brisbane. Among the topics up for discussion was the question of beneficial ownership. Read more >

Anyone can help to unmask the corrupt

Global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International’s (TI) two-year campaign titled Unmask the Corrupt was launched in September 2014. The campaign seeks to root out a specific form of corruption in government, business and civil society – that of transferring stolen assets across international borders by using shell companies, companies with opaque ownership structures, and money laundering. Read more >

Reveal beneficial owners of firms to stem graft

By David Lewis There is a head of steam building behind what must sound like an arcane, technical proposal – that companies be obliged to reveal their beneficial owners and that this information be placed on a public register. After intense lobbying by Transparency International and other nongovernmental organisations, this proposal was adopted by the Read more >

A step towards elimination of secret companies

Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis chatted to Moneyweb’s Siki Mgabadeli in the wake of the news that the G20 has adopted strict new principles to tackle money laundering and undisclosed beneficial ownership. Download this interview as an MP3 Siki Mgabadeli: G20 leaders over the weekend vowed to implement an anti-corruption action plan as part Read more >

G20 beneficial ownership principles: six points to note

Source: Transparency International This weekend G20 leaders adopted new high level principles on beneficial ownership transparency in Brisbane, declaring “financial transparency, in particular the transparency of beneficial ownership of legal persons and arrangements a ‘high priority’”. But just how good are these principles? Here are six take-home points: 1. They were adopted. And that’s a Read more >