PPE graft-busting may be harbinger

Yesterday’s announcement that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has obtained a court order to freeze accounts of businesses linked to alleged irregular Gauteng personal protective equipment contracts might seem like a corruption war victory, but only time will tell whether it might become a forgotten skirmish.

SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said probing about 160 companies in Gauteng alone led the unit to suspicious activity in a bank account where R38 million was sent. Tracking some of the bank accounts led to the R38 million find. The amount, Kganyago said, was spread out to all the companies being frozen to date.

“Follow the money” has always been a cardinal principle for those trying to combat corruption… and it has often been cited in this country, but seldom followed up on. Hopefully, this is a sign things are changing and the really important weapons in the fraud investigation arsenal – clever bean counters – are being deployed.

In a number of cases of looting and dodgy dealing in South Africa, webs of front companies, third-party trading and even aliases have been used to obscure the source and destination of ill-gotten money. This has enabled many of the corrupt to live lives of opulence while saying there is nothing to link them to wrongdoing.

It is worrying, though, that the focus appears to be on the latest, politically embarrassing theft – that of funds intended to combat a serous pandemic – rather than on the myriad other scams and outright thefts. Freezing money is an effective weapon as it stops evidence being moved and deprives the thieves of their loot. It should be used more often.

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