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CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
The Test Of Time
A colleague recently pointed out that First National Bank’s registration number shows that it was registered in 1929 (as Barclays South Africa), just as the world entered the great depression....
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Pockets of Excellence
Under the circumstances, it is easy to be pessimistic, but South African society has backbone and we should take pride in our many pockets of excellence. My wife and I...
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Less is more
According the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa there is no set rule, but the guideline is that one person ought not to hold more than five posts as non-executive...
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Stakeholder Capitalism: Time to Move from Talk to Delivery
Who Owns Whom MD, Andrew McGregor reveals that the South African business community has the edge over their international peers in supporting sustainable development goals, which generate broad-based value, contrary...
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Fighting Corruption, Money Laundering And Terrorist Funding
Murky ownership details give crooks places to hide Companies profiled by Who Owns Whom researchers are allocated a transparency rating based on their willingness to disclose information about themselves, from 1 (opaque) to 10 (fully transparent). Of the 15,241 active companies on file, 32.76% scored above 6. While this is a material percentage, it indicates that we still have some way to go to convince our business community that transparency is more conducive to a functional society than secrecy.
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Corporate Citizenship
How are we going to uplift the unacceptable levels of vulnerable people in our society? The Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy was designed to redress the economic imbalance caused by...
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Know Your Client
The global fight against corruption, money laundering and terrorist funding activities has seen the obligation to ‘know your client’ become an inexorable international trend, which has been brought even closer to home with the Gupta, VBS, Steinhoff and Bosasa delinquencies. To bring South Africa in line with international efforts and to meet our commitments to the G20 in this regard, government promulgated The Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica) of 2001 (amended in 2017) to create the Financial Intelligence Centre, which has become one of the most effective institutions fighting corruption and crime in our society.
CountriesGovernanceIndustriesSouth AfricaTransparency
Department of Public Enterprises Should Be Planning its Own Demise
An opinion piece by Who Owns Whom’s MD, Andrew McGregor, looks at the unintended impact of giving a single minister control of the largest state-owned entities (SOEs) back in 1999....
