When the state capture commission began its hearings in August 2018, its first witness was National Treasury’s acting chief procurement officer at the time, Ndleleni Mathebula. His testimony was an overview of the state’s public procurement system, its challenges and positives. He placed government’s average annual spending on procurement at R800-billion, and said the degree Read more >
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“I do think the most valuable way both of rewarding and protecting whistle-blowers is to make of them seriously high-profile characters.” These are the words of Corruption Watch’s former executive director David Lewis, speaking in early March at a webinar hosted by the Mail & Guardian and titled Amend South Africa’s legislation to include rewards Read more >
Since 2017, Corruption Watch has been calling for probes into and criminal charges regarding the professional conduct of auditing firms and service providers such as KPMG, McKinsey, Deloitte, and Trillian. These firms and others have been implicated in dodgy dealings with several state owned enterprises including Eskom and Transnet, as well as the South African Read more >
By Mandisi MajavuFirst published in The Conversation One of the shameful achievements of the African National Congress (ANC) in its 25 years of governing post-apartheid South Africa is that it’s living up to the political stereotype of what is wrong with post-colonial Africa – unethical and corrupt African leaders who exercise power through patronage. The widespread corruption Read more >
By Kwazi Dlamini A recent series of briefs by the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) has shed light on the role that four particular professional service industries have played in enabling corruption – these industries are law, accounting, auditing and management consulting. Among their members are names we have become used to hearing about, and not Read more >
By Kwazi Dlamini Characteristics of a profession: • The offering of a service to the public; • The possession of a special skill; • Having undergone specified training and education; • The possession of privilege or state recognition; • Membership to a self-disciplined group, with a “community of interest in theory and in fact among Read more >
Auditors and auditing firms have been in the news in recent months. We read about the likes of VBS Mutual Bank, Steinhoff and others, where auditors seemingly turned a blind eye to irregularities. Firms such as KPMG, which has been implicated in scandals involving the Gupta-owned Linkway Trading as well as the South African Revenue Read more >
Corruption Watch has expressed disgust at the corrupt conduct of yet another large multinational corporation, Bain & Company, as recently revealed at the Nugent Commission of Inquiry into SARS. The commission revealed that the global management consultancy had, in undertaking a massively costly investigation at SARS, allowed itself to be used to further the corrupt Read more >
Corruption Watch applauds the Hawks’ morning raid on the Gupta compound, and the subsequent arrests in relation to the Vrede dairy farm investigations, including that of Ajay Gupta. Also arrested was Free State’s agriculture department head, Peter Thabethe. The organisation has repeatedly called for those implicated in multiple corruption scandals to be held accountable and Read more >