00:00:00
Speaker 1: Stephen Powell, head of forensics practice at ENS Africa, joins us now. Regular guest, I'm delighted to say, on the program. The trillion-rand corruption problem. Stephen, good afternoon. Is it time for a new Chapter 9 watchdog? We know corruption is huge. We know that lots of money being stolen from individuals, from treasury, from shareholders, from all sorts of people. Do you have a nice, neat way of encapsulating just how big the South African corruption problem is? Who can hang on to one trillion rand?
00:00:36
Speaker 2: I can't. Absolutely. It's a massive problem, John. And, you know, government spends a trillion rand each year on goods, services and infrastructure across many departments, provinces, municipalities. We've got more than 250 municipalities in the country. And the governance in many of these municipalities and government departments is just not what it should be. And so what you've got is a whole lot of dishonest business people who treat government tenders as a shortcut to instant wealth. And the problem just seems to be getting much, much worse. And the things coming out of the Madlanga Commission shows that, you know, we've got corruption at the highest levels in the police force. We have corruption within the NPA. And in my view, it's just getting out of control. And we've gone through the Zondo Commission. We had state capture followed by Zondo. We've now had the gray list in October 25. We were fortunate enough to get off the gray list. And now we've got the revelations coming out of Matlanga. So in my view, we need to get a department, a division, a body that is protected by our constitutional, hence the call for a Chapter 9 institution to lead and coordinate the fight against corruption.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: Isn't it possible to argue, Stephen, that if the other organizations that are involved in the fight against corruption hadn't been hollowed out and not yet fixed... the way that has happened particularly since the dissolution of the Scorpions maybe, so a couple of decades at least. If those organizations had been properly functional, properly staffed, properly led, then would we still need the separate yet another institution?
00:02:30
Speaker 2: We still need it, and I believe desperately, John, because the problem we've got is that people that are politically connected are virtually untouchable. And Matlanga has made a dent into that. But the very dissolution of the Skorkians is, I think, good evidence as to why we need a body that is protected by our constitution. And Chapter 9, in my view, can fulfill that function. Because at the moment, the Department of Justice controls the NPA. And a lot of what we've seen in terms of anti-corruption, is government appointees, and we need to get to a Chapter 9 body that can control and coordinate these investigations without fear of political interference. And then the other problem we've got is that we have all of these different units, but it's almost like separate silos, and you need someone, a body that can coordinate the various initiatives to get SARS, acid forfeiture, the FIC, and all of these bodies need to cooperate and collaborate. And I'm not suggesting that we need a new body to do the investigations. We just need an organization that can head it. And when I look to the United States, and maybe that's a bad example currently under Donald Trump, but if we look at how the DOJ functions when it comes to companies that bribe, They impose multi-billion rand penalties. Actually, I should say they used to impose multi-billion rand penalties. They've gone into a bit of a low at the moment under Donald Trump. But I'm sure that will go back to normal. And if we have a body that makes it unattractive for companies to bribe in our country, we take away the bribe payer. It's a lot harder for these corrupt parties to enrich themselves. So that's the type of thing that I'm looking for. And there's also revenue that is generated out of finding the companies that pay the price.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Stephen, it isn't the best connection, so I am going to leave it there. And thank you for what you have shared with us, which is really, as always, thought-provoking. Stephen Powell, Head of Forensics Practice at ENS Africa.
Speaker 1: Stephen Powell, head of forensics practice at ENS Africa, joins us now. Regular guest, I'm delighted to say, on the program. The trillion-rand corruption problem. Stephen, good afternoon. Is it time for a new Chapter 9 watchdog? We know corruption is huge. We know that lots of money being stolen from individuals, from treasury, from shareholders, from all sorts of people. Do you have a nice, neat way of encapsulating just how big the South African corruption problem is? Who can hang on to one trillion rand?
00:00:36
Speaker 2: I can't. Absolutely. It's a massive problem, John. And, you know, government spends a trillion rand each year on goods, services and infrastructure across many departments, provinces, municipalities. We've got more than 250 municipalities in the country. And the governance in many of these municipalities and government departments is just not what it should be. And so what you've got is a whole lot of dishonest business people who treat government tenders as a shortcut to instant wealth. And the problem just seems to be getting much, much worse. And the things coming out of the Madlanga Commission shows that, you know, we've got corruption at the highest levels in the police force. We have corruption within the NPA. And in my view, it's just getting out of control. And we've gone through the Zondo Commission. We had state capture followed by Zondo. We've now had the gray list in October 25. We were fortunate enough to get off the gray list. And now we've got the revelations coming out of Matlanga. So in my view, we need to get a department, a division, a body that is protected by our constitutional, hence the call for a Chapter 9 institution to lead and coordinate the fight against corruption.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: Isn't it possible to argue, Stephen, that if the other organizations that are involved in the fight against corruption hadn't been hollowed out and not yet fixed... the way that has happened particularly since the dissolution of the Scorpions maybe, so a couple of decades at least. If those organizations had been properly functional, properly staffed, properly led, then would we still need the separate yet another institution?
00:02:30
Speaker 2: We still need it, and I believe desperately, John, because the problem we've got is that people that are politically connected are virtually untouchable. And Matlanga has made a dent into that. But the very dissolution of the Skorkians is, I think, good evidence as to why we need a body that is protected by our constitution. And Chapter 9, in my view, can fulfill that function. Because at the moment, the Department of Justice controls the NPA. And a lot of what we've seen in terms of anti-corruption, is government appointees, and we need to get to a Chapter 9 body that can control and coordinate these investigations without fear of political interference. And then the other problem we've got is that we have all of these different units, but it's almost like separate silos, and you need someone, a body that can coordinate the various initiatives to get SARS, acid forfeiture, the FIC, and all of these bodies need to cooperate and collaborate. And I'm not suggesting that we need a new body to do the investigations. We just need an organization that can head it. And when I look to the United States, and maybe that's a bad example currently under Donald Trump, but if we look at how the DOJ functions when it comes to companies that bribe, They impose multi-billion rand penalties. Actually, I should say they used to impose multi-billion rand penalties. They've gone into a bit of a low at the moment under Donald Trump. But I'm sure that will go back to normal. And if we have a body that makes it unattractive for companies to bribe in our country, we take away the bribe payer. It's a lot harder for these corrupt parties to enrich themselves. So that's the type of thing that I'm looking for. And there's also revenue that is generated out of finding the companies that pay the price.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Stephen, it isn't the best connection, so I am going to leave it there. And thank you for what you have shared with us, which is really, as always, thought-provoking. Stephen Powell, Head of Forensics Practice at ENS Africa.
