Fifteen years in prison.
That is the maximum sentence the draft Protected Disclosures Bill attaches to subjecting a whistleblower to occupational detriment. Under the Act currently in force, doing the same thing carries no criminal consequence at all. And the liability does not sit neatly with the organisation. It attaches to the individual who handled the report.
Close to a third of fraud tips never reach your hotline. They arrive as a quiet word with a line manager, in a corridor, off the record. Under the new Bill, that quiet word starts a legal clock that runs out in five days. The Act you are currently working to gives you 21 days just to acknowledge receipt.
There is also one provision that has attracted far less attention than the rest, which removes a disclosure from your control the moment it is logged. If a disclosure arrived at your organisation this morning naming a member of your executive, could you name the person who should receive it?
 
Click below to read the full article so that you and your team understand the implications and penalties relating to the new Bill.
https://lnkd.in/gansZ_qk
 
#Whistleblowing #CorporateGovernance #ProtectedDisclosuresBill #FraudRisk #SouthAfricanBusiness

By the time most fraud investigations deliver their final report, the assets are stripped, the evidence is wiped, and the perpetrators have resigned with clean records.The report arrives. The guilty are gone.There's a name for this approach: governance by autopsy. And if your company treats forensic investigations as documents to be finalised before anyone acts, you're practising it right now.South Africa's commissions of inquiry made this model famous. More than R1 billion spent on State Capture alone, with painfully little to show for it. But one current commission is quietly breaking the mould, securing suspensions and prosecutions while its hearings are still underway.What it's doing differently holds direct lessons for your boardroom, and you don't need to wait for a scandal to apply them.So ask yourself: is your company investigating to act, or investigating to file a report?Click below to read the full article.https://lnkd.in/gHJ6gxXR#CorporateGovernance #ForensicInvestigation #Corruption #RiskManagement #SouthAfrica

SAPS paid a politically connected supplier more than R50 million before the contract was cancelled.The man now facing charges for failing to stop it is the National Police Commissioner himself.He is not an isolated case. In the same eighteen-month window, two Hawks officers stand accused of trying to bury evidence in a double murder investigation, and the head of IDAC, the state's lead anti-corruption prosecuting unit, is the subject of a criminal complaint over a conflict of interest she has admitted handling badly.The police. The prosecutors. The anti-corruption unit. All three under examination at once.None of these officials has been convicted, and each denies wrongdoing. But if your governance model rests on "the authorities are on it," these cases are reason to run the numbers again. The article shows how the only layer of assurance your company owns outright is the one you build yourself.Click below to read the full article.#ForensicServices #CorporateGovernance #FraudRisk #SouthAfrica #Accountability

R100,000. That's all it takes to turn your silence into a criminal offence.Since April 2024, a section of PRECCA has made it a crime for anyone in a position of authority to sit on knowledge, or even suspicion, of fraud above that threshold. Not misconduct. Not negligence. A criminal offence, even if you never touched a cent.Yet outside legal and compliance circles, almost nobody knows this law exists.And the reporting duty is only half of it. The law also expects you to have taken "reasonable measures" to prevent corruption in the first place, including by your third-party contractors. What counts as reasonable? The law doesn't say yet.The article breaks down exactly who must report, to whom, the six principles our courts are likely to borrow from the UK, and two red flags hiding in your own data right now. One involves an employee who hasn't taken a single day of leave in three years.If a contractor committed fraud on your behalf last month, would you know? And could you prove you tried to stop it?Click below to read the full article so you know what is coming.#PRECCA #CorporateGovernance #FraudPrevention #ForensicInvestigation #PersonalLiability

Jenny the cat was the Titanic's mascot, brought on board to help control rodents. She lived in the ship's galley and was cared for by a labourer named Jim Mulholland.During sea trials, Jenny gave birth to kittens and Jim found them a cosy spot next to the ship's galley. Caring for the mother cat and her kittens broke the monotony of Jim's work preparing the Titanic for its maiden voyage. Jenny seemed content with her warm spot near the boilers, her babies, and the scraps from the galley that Jim brought her. However, soon after the ship docked at Southampton, England, just before embarking on its maiden voyage (to New York), Jenny took a good look around and quickly started grabbing her kittens by the neck and carrying them off. One by one, down the gangway she took them off the ship. Jim watched her carefully and realized that "this cat must know something others don't!" He then quickly gathered his belongings and left the ship as well. Click the link to read the full article - https://lnkd.in/ducCvT76

Sanity (and justice) have prevailed! At the end of last month, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) withdrew controversial fraud charges against forensic lawyer Sarah Burger, the former lead investigator who uncovered evidence of massive wrongdoings at the University of Fort Hare.
Sarah and her colleague, Bradley Conradie, are directors at Horizon Forensics, the company appointed by the University in 2018 to investigate suspected incidents of academic fraud and financial mismanagement.
Since then, they’ve launched multiple investigations (many alongside the Special Investigations Unit – SIU) that have exposed syndicates involving university staff, politically connected individuals, and local businesses.In the wake of their findings, about 40 University employees have either been dismissed, or have resigned, and 20 cases have been referred to the Hawks for further investigation.
Despite all their efforts, however, they received a frustrating lack of support from the police, saying it was “incomprehensible” that not a single arrest has been made relating to any of the cases they’d referred to the SAPS in the past six years.
Click below to read the full article:https://lnkd.in/dMz8jXWg

The decision that will define South Africa's future isn't being made in Cape Town. The US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act would give President Trump power to sanction government leaders deemed corrupt or too cosy with China and Russia.
President Ramaphosa and other senior ANC figures are reportedly in the crosshairs.
The irony is stark: sanctions once used to topple apartheid could now target the very party they helped elevate. Whether you view this as foreign interference or legitimate anti-corruption pressure, one thing is certain – the implications stretch far beyond individual politicians to the entire US-South Africa relationship and if passed, the fallout could impact all South Africans.
 
Click below to read the full article.
https://lnkd.in/gAvcSrYP

Whistleblowers—those individuals brave enough to speak up against wrongdoing—are a critical yet vulnerable element in the chain of accountability. Without them, many of the most consequential fraud cases would never come to light.Fraud and corruption continue to pose serious threats to the integrity of public and private institutions across South Africa. While internal controls, audits, and compliance frameworks play a role in mitigating this risk, one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal is often overlooked: the whistleblower.According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, over 40% of all fraud cases are detected through tip-offs—far surpassing any other method. These insiders see what others cannot. They witness misconduct firsthand, and they often have access to documents and communications that are pivotal in proving wrongdoing.Click below to read the full article
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whistleblowers-unsung-heroes-fight-against-fraud-jacques-van-wyk-kojqc/?trackingId=oEudzLVf2K7QdIM7TYfe%2FA%3D%3D

As far back as 2015, an article in respected publication The Daily Maverick estimated that South Africa had lost R700 billion in public money to corruption since the advent of democracy in 1994. 
We’re now almost a decade down the line and I shudder to think what kinds of figures might now be in the frame.

From the rain-soaked opening ceremony to the awarding of the very last medal, the 2024 Paris Olympics had its fair share of controversial moments – but perhaps none more so than the women’s boxing match between Italy’s Angela Carini and Algeria’s Imane Khelif.
After only 46 seconds – and two sickening head blows - Carini abandoned her fight, saying she had been hit so hard she “couldn’t breathe anymore” and feared for her life.