Tag: law enforcement

As South Africa prepares to hear Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s medium-term budget speech this week, it is becoming increasingly clear that the country needs a new post-COVID-19 approach to the tobacco industry and the growing illicit tobacco sector.

Experian - a consumer, business and credit information services agency – has experienced a breach of data which has exposed some personal information of as many as 24 million South Africans and 793,749 business entities to a suspected fraudster.

News that Mauritius was added to the EU list of high-risk third countries on 7 May 2020 has understandably caused much consternation amongst fund managers who have fund structures and investment holding vehicles domiciled in Mauritius. While this is certainly a cause of concern, the following should be borne in mind.

Prior to the pandemic we were seeing the usual scams impersonating banks, telcos, and shipping companies but now a portion of them have switched to using the pandemic, the World Health Organisation, the American Centers for Disease Control and various international and local charitable organisations as bait.

Valued at around $23-billion, illegal wildlife trade is the fourth most profitable criminal trafficking enterprise worldwide, yet it's not given the prominence it deserves. But things are changing. In a first-of-its-kind meeting in SA, the financial sector, government and law enforcement met to discuss ways to combat the industrial theft of wildlife.

Considering the high profile scandals that have dominated news headlines in the last few years, from VBS Mutual Bank to Eskom, it does not seem unreasonable to say that South Africa may have a corporate fraud problem. What’s more, the accounting irregularities that led to shareholders being defrauded and losing significant shareholder value, may have been entirely preventable if the internal auditors had been more empowered, protected and held to the same level of accountability as external auditors, via appropriate regulation of the internal audit industry.

Just one year ago, the South African tourism market had set its sights on a bumper festive season that would see it sail through some of the economic challenges it has encountered, and into a brighter future. But 12 months down the line, its challenges today weigh even heavier on the market. 

A clean audit gives a company a clean bill of health. However, when a company finds itself in a situation that could lead to...