Newsletter: January 2024

2023 Round-up | What’s New in 2024

2023 was a busy year for Open Secrets. Our team of investigators, campaigners, and lawyers challenged powerful – and in some instances dangerous – profiteers and human rights abusers. We published four new investigative reports – including our first on climate profiteers – and continued the fight for justice and accountability for perpetrators and enablers of economic crime and human rights violations.

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Highlights

• Our Russian Doll investigation exposed a significant story of human rights abuse involving multiple units within the SANDF. This brought national attention to this important issue, and advocacy and legal action is ongoing.
• Open Secrets collaborated with Carte Blanche in the production of the episode ‘SANDF torture squad’, which was based on Open Secrets’ Russian Doll investigation and aired on national TV and online. We also provided an in-depth interview for Carte Blanche’s episode ‘PetroSA’s dirty business’. Hundreds of thousands tuned in for both, and the episodes were among the most watched on Carte Blanche’s YouTube channel in 2023.
• We launched the #WhoKilledFransMathipa campaign, keeping the case in the public eye so that this doesn’t go as another unsolved murder.
• In a victory for judicial accountability, we successfully opposed the ‘Arms Deal Commission’ Judges in a High Court application – setting a legal precedent that will ensure that Judges can be held accountable for their actions once they have retired.
• The Secretary (2023) was a top 5 finalist for the inaugural African Investigative Journalist of the Year Award. “The award recognizes outstanding examples of investigative reporting from Africa that reveal untold stories, hold the powerful to account, question those in public life and serve the public interest”.
• The Unaccountables book was long-listed for the Sunday Times Literary Awards for non-fiction in 2023.
• We published Fronts, Fakes and Façades, our first investigation into state capture in Zimbabwe with tentacles stretching to Mauritius, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
• We published our new investigative report Who Has the Power? South Africa’s Energy Profiteers, which is Open Secrets’ first report examining the energy sector and climate crisis. It spotlights the ‘energy profiteers’, key private players in the coal, gas, diesel, and renewable energy industries.

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2023 Publications

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Coming up in 2024

This year, Open Secrets will be publishing more ground-breaking investigations and using the law to challenge profiteers of economic crime and human rights abuse. We’ll be kicking off the year with the People’s Hearing on Energy Profiteers, taking a deeper dive into climate crisis profiteers, and releasing some exciting new investigative tools.

EVENT: The People’s Hearing on Energy Profiteers and Exhibition | On Wednesday 31st January 2023, Open Secrets will be hosting our third People’s Hearing to advocate for justice for environmental and socio-economic issues associated with the energy sector. Activists, civil society, and experts will share their experiences and testimonies as part of the day’s programming at Community House in Salt River, Cape Town. A curated exhibition will also run concurrently with the main programming and provide an opportunity for the public to interact more deeply with climate activism through art, poetry, and photography. Join us on this important day or follow the hearings online. RSVP HERE.

Climate Profiteers Power Mapper | Open Secrets is proud to present our latest investigative tool – The Climate Profiteers Power Mapper, which will be launched in March 2024. It is intended to be an interactive database which profiles the powerful players in the energy sector in South Africa, including corporations, individuals, political parties, lobbyists and other potential profiteers of climate change and the transition to renewables.

Gupta Tracker | We cannot let the Guptas escape accountability by becoming out of sight, out of mind. Open Secrets is developing the Gupta Tracker so we can at least keep tabs on how they are spending all that looted South African cash, even as the authorities fumble about in extraditing these architects of State Capture. Have you seen the Guptas lately? Send us a tip at researcher@opensecrets.org.za

State Capture Trackers | We have not forgotten the state capture elite in the public and private sector who have not been held accountable. In 2024, we will continue to expose how these bandits in suits spent their state capture loot, examine the progress of the recommendations made by the Zondo Commission, and profile the lacklustre State Capture prosecutions to date.

Podcasts | We have not one, but TWO new Open Secrets podcasts in the works. Listen out for updates in the next few months!

There is much more on the way in the form of new investigations, important legal cases and bold campaigns. Please join us in ensuring that the powerful are held to account. We all want a fairer society in 2024!

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In the Media

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