JACO de Jager, Smartryk Calitz, Thulani Ntobela and Len Coetzee were some of the delegates at the Fraud Awareness Seminar held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre. | NANDI NGIDI
Durban — The far-reaching effects of fraud and corruption, which have placed South Africans and the economy in a vulnerable position, came under scrutiny during a seminar in Durban this week.
A gathering of role-players in the “good governance” space attended the Fraud and Corruption Awareness Seminar, hosted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and the eThekwini Municipality at Durban’s ICC.
The event was in keeping with the International Fraud Awareness Week, which was observed in November.
While many South Africans are familiar with the ill-effects of fraud and corruption, the country’s bad reputation and susceptibility to such crimes extend beyond its borders. According to Interpol’s 2022 Africa Cyberthreat Report, the country was tops on the continent and among the top three in the world regarding cyberthreats related to e-mails. Earlier this year, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – a global watchdog for money laundering that advances terrorist activities – grey-listed South Africa.
The FATF probes found the country hadn’t met international standards in preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
Roshiela Benimadho, a senior public prosecutor in the National Prosecuting Authority’s Durban cluster, spoke about other forms of corruption that have been normalised in society because of the lack of consequences for criminals.
“Our government and private businesses suffer financial and reputational harm ... money and infrastructure leaves our borders, economic growth is reduced, investor confidence is affected, rule of law suffers, taxpayers are taxed further and service delivery suffers,” said Benimadho.
Another form of corruption that had bloomed in recent years was the “construction mafia”. Benimadho identified scammers who were demanding 30% payments from contractors as “protection” from violent disruptions and stoppages.
She explained that the 30% notion came from a misunderstanding of previous procurement legislation that a successful tenderer was compelled to subcontract a minimum of 30% of the contract value to previously disadvantaged people.
“Business forums focused only on the 30% and ignored the rest of the regulations.”
Benimadho said in making their demand, the forums claimed it was for job creation, but in reality only a fraction was allocated for that purpose.
She said in January, the Preferential Procurement Regulations, 2022 stated that entities were not required to enforce subcontracting as a qualification criterion.
Benimadho said construction companies had since “melted in the heat of heavy-handed threats of “pay up or else”.
Perpetrators assumed that it was a victimless crime because “contractors get big tenders anyway,” Benimadho said. Prosecutor Vishalan Moodley, shared information about the value “Open Source Intelligence” (Osint) added to investigations in tracking suspects linked to construction mafias and other criminals.
Moodley described Osint as the analysis of publicly available data, which enables investigators to track suspects, “sooner or later”.
Sunday Tribune