Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released today, highlights how corruption has impacted the ability of countries around the world, including South Africa, to manage their health care responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. South Africa has barely shifted its position, coming in once again with a score of 44 and a rank of 69, Read more >
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Every year around this time, Transparency International (TI) releases its Corruption Perceptions Index – and every year we report on South Africa’s consistently lacklustre showing. In the previous CPI the country scored 44. In 2018 and 2017 it scored 43. Before that, South Africa managed 45 (2016), 44 (2015). 44 (2014), 42 (2013), and 43 Read more >
Perceptions of corruption in South Africa will be under the spotlight again on Thursday, 28 January 2021, when Transparency International, the leading civil society organisation tackling corruption worldwide, will release its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The 2020 edition of the CPI ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, drawing on Read more >
On Friday morning, 22 January, the Pietermaritzburg High Court dismissed, with costs, the bid by French arms company Thales to challenge racketeering charges. Known at that time as Thomson-CSF, Thales was a supplier in South Africa’s controversial multi-billion-rand arms deal in 1999. The charges of corruption, racketeering and money laundering are linked to the hugely Read more >
Former crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli may well go to jail for kidnapping, intimidation and assault – but his corruption case which was reinstated in 2015 has yet to see the inside of a courtroom. That will only happen in November. In the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday morning, Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng handed down a Read more >
In late 2017 the Steinhoff scandal broke, sending tremors of anger and outrage around the world, especially in the countries where the South African multinational retail holding company traded or was listed. Accounting irregularities dating back to 2015 were uncovered during an auditing probe triggered by the refusal of Deloitte, Steinhoff’s auditing firm at the Read more >
Mauritius, that lazy, friendly little island in the Indian Ocean, beloved of holidaymakers and honeymooners, has a dark side. It is also a favourite haunt of money launderers and tax evaders and in fact, is known as one of the world’s top corporate tax havens. In July 2019, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) 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 Sabeehah Motala Illicit financial flows (IFFs) are costing Africa $30-billion to $40-billion per year and have eroded African countries’ tax bases, hampering their abilities to respond effectively to Covid-19 emergency needs. Lockdown, states of emergency, and all the accompanying implications mean that developing states are more vulnerable than ever to the possibility of illicit Read more >