The post Media Statement| Civil Society calls for urgent government action on NACAC anti-corruption proposals appeared first on Open Secrets.

Advocacy ICP Leaks Investigations Legal Media statement News

27 NOVEMBER 2025 (Cape Town) – The Western Cape High Court has dismissed the urgent interdict application brought by Integrated Convoy Protection (ICP) against Open Secrets. The interdict sought to silence Open Secrets and prevent the publication of an article about ICP’s contract to supply armoured vehicles to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ICP became aware of the article when Open Secrets sent a ‘right of reply’ letter, which is standard journalistic practice prior to publication, and sought to interdict its publication rather than respond thereto.

Prior to the hearing, Open Secrets was prevented by the interim order delivered by Acting Judge Cooper from discussing the details of the application or the gag order. That gag is now lifted.

Open Secrets welcomes the order handed down today by Acting Deputy Judge President Erasmus. This is a victory for long-standing journalistic practice, a free media and public interest reporting on alleged wrongdoing.

We trust that this victory sends an important signal to those seeking to conceal their impropriety; our courts  will not undermine the democratic principles of transparency and accountability for the sake of commercial and reputational interests, especially where that interest is premised on potentially unlawful conduct.

Efforts to muzzle public-interest journalism endanger everyone’s right to know. Open Secrets will not be cowed by attempts to silence our investigations. We will continue to assert and fulfil our right—and duty—to publish fair, fact-based investigations in the public interest.

We are grateful to our excellent legal team comprised of PowerLaw Africa, Geoff Budlender SC and Sanan Mirzoyev for taking forward our organisational commitment to truth and justice over power and profit. We are equally grateful for the vocal supporters and partner organisations who refused to remain silent about the gag order.

 

About Open Secrets and PowerLaw Africa

Open Secrets is a non-profit organisation which exposes and builds accountability for private sector economic crimes through investigative research, advocacy, and the law.

PowerLaw Africa is an alliance of public interest law firms providing public interest litigation and legal services for cases and causes that matter in South Africa, Kenya, and around the African continent.

 

For media comment contact:

Hennie van Vuuren – Director

hvanvuuren@opensecrets.org.za

+27 82 902 1303

 

Ariella Scher – Head of Legal

ascher@opensecrets.org.za

+27 83 390 4480

October 20, 2025

The cost of Eskom’s secret pricing deals | Currency News

August 18, 2025

Access to Information in the Climate, Energy, and Environmental Space

October 31, 2025

The political muscle behind South Africa’s mobile giants | Currency News

October 30, 2025

The Hidden Power of Private Telecoms – Interview with Tessa Dooms

October 29, 2025

Open Secrets Reveals the Powerful Owners Behind South Africa’s Private Telecoms – SAfm

October 7, 2025

Who Owns South Africa? | The Dan Corder Show

The post PRESS RELEASE: Gag order lifted – Open Secrets victory in urgent interdict filed by armoured vehicle company Integrated Convoy Protection appeared first on Open Secrets.

Advocacy Investigations Legal Media statement

Cape Town, South Africa

Open Secrets is presently unable to speak on a matter of significant public importance. We are not permitted to disclose anything related to the matter including the names of the parties that may be involved. What we can say is simple: efforts to muzzle public-interest journalism endanger everyone’s right to know.

South Africa’s Constitution protects freedom of expression and media freedom. We assert our right—and duty—to publish fair, fact-based investigations in the public interest.

Public interest media, investigative journalists, whistleblowers and civil society must be safe from surveillance, intimidation, doxxing, arbitrary arrest, and physical harm. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), gag orders, and abusive prosecutions curtail media freedom and must be rejected by courts, regulators, and the public.

We urge corporations and powerful private actors to end SLAPPs and intimidation; disclose information that is of public interest; and respect the watchdog role of public interest media, the press, and civil society. Our courts have historically sanctioned abuse of processes meant to intimidate and silence journalists

We will not be silent

Open Secrets will not be cowed by attempts to silence our investigations. With our attorneys at PowerLaw Africa, we will challenge this gag order.

If we succeed in this legal challenge, you will be the first to know what we have uncovered.

 

About Open Secrets and PowerLaw Africa

Open Secrets is a non-profit organisation which exposes and builds accountability for private sector economic crimes through investigative research, advocacy, and the law.

PowerLaw Africa is an alliance of public interest law firms providing public interest litigation and legal services for cases and causes that matter in South Africa, Kenya, and around the African continent.

Support Open Secrets

Fighting gag orders is expensive. Tying civil society and public interest media into protracted legal cases is also a silencing measure. To stay truly independent we refuse corporate and government funding. Instead we rely on philanthropy and people like you. Support Open Secrets’ fight for truth and justice. Donate today.

October 20, 2025

The cost of Eskom’s secret pricing deals | Currency News

August 18, 2025

Access to Information in the Climate, Energy, and Environmental Space

October 31, 2025

The political muscle behind South Africa’s mobile giants | Currency News

October 30, 2025

The Hidden Power of Private Telecoms – Interview with Tessa Dooms

October 29, 2025

Open Secrets Reveals the Powerful Owners Behind South Africa’s Private Telecoms – SAfm

October 7, 2025

Who Owns South Africa? | The Dan Corder Show

The post Open Secrets has been gagged. We cannot say by who or why. appeared first on Open Secrets.

Media statement News Print Media Online State Capture Profiteers Who Owns South Africa?

October 28, 2025

Cape Town, South Africa

Open Secrets has launched the latest volume of its incisive new Who Owns South Africa series that exposes the powerful players who own South Africa’s economy. This volume, Who Owns South Africa: Private Telecoms, examines the ownership of the country’s biggest telecoms companies: MTN, Vodacom, Telkom and Cell C. It reveals how these players impact the rights of people around the world, their relationships with powerful politicians, and the growing role they play in selling financial services.

At the heart of our report is the argument that telecoms services should be a public right instead of a private privilege for corporate benefit. In South Africa, at least 90% of households own a working mobile phone, which has helped almost 80% of people access Internet services. Without mobile telecoms, most of these Internet users would not have access to needed communication and information services.

But, access to these services are impacted by the concentrated private ownership in the sector. Just three companies – MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom – control more than 90% of the mobile telecoms market in South Africa. Together, these companies paid nearly R20 billion in dividends to shareholders in the previous financial year.

WOSA: Private Telecoms comes at a time when MTN is facing scrutiny over its board of directors’ revolving door with the ANC, and its business operations in Iran, which have been used by US politicians to peddle their own foreign interests. Likewise, the private owners of Vodacom and Telkom have close ties to politicians and politics, allowing private profit to have sway in politics.

These political connections have other impacts. MTN and Vodacom have obeyed requests of governments and other groups to potentially violate human rights in countries across Africa and the Middle East through Internet shutdowns. We first traced these shutdowns in our #ShutdownsEverywhereYouGo report earlier this year. We continue to emphasise  how these vital services have been used to further the interests of powerful elites, while suppressing human rights across the world.

Lastly, we show how telecoms companies are increasingly selling financial services to vulnerable people throughout Africa and profiting from it. While fintech has been lauded for increasing financial inclusion for poor people, our report uncovers the growing concerns of how these services may be exploitative and extractive, and how market dominance allows these companies to corner the market for financial products.

This report is a call to action for fairer models of ownership in the telecoms industry.  These basic services must work in the interests of the people, instead of the shareholders who control them.

In August 2025, we released our first WOSA volume, WOSA: The System, and in September we launched our second, WOSA: Private Healthcare.

Read WOSA Vol.3 : Private Telecoms

June 23, 2026

INVESTIGATION | Who Owns South Africa? – Private Pensions

June 22, 2026

INVESTIGATION | Who Owns South Africa? – Private Health

June 8, 2026

Media Statement| Civil Society calls for urgent government action on NACAC anti-corruption proposals

January 12, 2026

South African company, Ren-Form, and Wicknell Chivayo embroiled in R570m Zimbabwe corruption scandal

November 12, 2025

Is the Private health care sector putting profits above people? | METRO FM Talk with Faith Mangope

November 7, 2025

Gigaba engages with IDAC over Transnet corruption probe

The post PRESS RELEASE | Open Secrets Reveals the Powerful Owners Behind South Africa’s Private Telecoms appeared first on Open Secrets.

PRESS RELEASE | Parliamentarians’ pension fund balks at transparency 

2 July 2025:

Fossil Free South Africa (FFSA) and Open Secrets express dismay and alarm at the refusal by the South African parliamentarians’ pension fund to divulge whether it invests in fossil fuel companies and in companies trading with human rights-abusing regimes, like Israel.

The Political Office Bearers Pension Fund (POBPF) is the fund in which the pensions of all members of Parliament and the provincial legislatures, including Cabinet members (except the President) are invested.

In an application lodged in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA), FFSA and Open Secrets asked the fund whether it invests in coal, oil and gas companies − the primary drivers of climate breakdown − and in companies supplying arms or commodities to regimes known to be abusing human rights.

Implications for responsible governance

The answers to these questions have “serious implications for responsible governance and our collective future”, said FFSA director David Le Page and Open Secrets lawyer Luthando Vilakazi. “The parliamentarians’ pension fund “should be held to a higher level of transparency than other funds in South Africa, given parliament’s responsibility for reigning in climate change and the stance it has already taken on Gaza.”

This includes South Africa’s effort to have Israel’s onslaught on Gaza declared a genocide by the International Court of Justice.

“If an MP’s retirement fund is dependent on the continuing profitability of fossil fuel companies, then not only is the Fund betting against a sustainable future, it simultaneously undercuts the responsibility of MPs to legislate for the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP)” says Vilakazi.

In its refusal, the fund is “wilfully interpreting its position in a blatant disregard for the transparency it claims as one of its founding principles,” said Le Page.

“Despite the Fund’s response we believe that the public interest override applies here considering the importance of transparency in ensuring accountability – particularly in climate-related issues and policymaking.” – Luthando Vilakazi

Publicly listed investments

In a written response for the POBPF, Jonathan Mort Inc. pension fund attorneys, said that our request did not meet the requirements of PAIA. “The Fund therefore denies your application as it neither indicates a valid right to be exercised or protected, nor how the information requested would assist the exercise or protection of a valid right.”

The POBPF’s investments are publicly listed in the fund’s financial reports. They reflect investments in a range of fossil fuel companies including Sasol, Glencore and Exxaro. These mostly appear to be of an order typical of South African pension funds, observed Le Page. “However, it’s not clear at all that the fund’s managers have ever applied their minds to the ethical issues involved in having these investments, and the conflicts of interest that arise for MPs.

“Of course, we would like all South Africans to pressure their asset managers to provide fossil fuel-free funds, and FFSA is working to persuade more asset managers to provide these. At the same time, the specific duty of MPs to act on the climate crisis gives them special responsibilities.

The POBPF’s declared Investment Strategy includes the commitment to an ethical approach to investments: The Fund’s investments should be managed in a manner that is “honest, transparent and ethical,” it states.

As things stand, it seems that parliamentarians do indeed benefit from investments in the fossil fuel industry; one whose emissions and pollution costs South Africa over R500 billion annually, added Le Page and Vilakazi.

Background:
FFSA is a non-profit organisation and network of South Africans working to secure human rights and prosperity by challenging financial and social support for the fossil fuel industry.
They are part of a growing international divestment movement. In response to the accelerating climate emergency and the continued failures by world governments to adequately regulate the fossil fuel industry, the global divestment movement has expanded to over 1667 institutions with $40,6 trillion in assets under management, including universities and cities around the world.
These include Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard Universities, Ireland, and the cities of New York, London, Paris, Melbourne, Cape Town and eThekwini, amongst many others.
In March 2022, FFSA won their long-standing campaign with students for the University of Cape Town to divest from fossil fuels.

—

Open Secrets is a non-profit organisation which exposes and builds accountability for private-sector economic crimes through investigative research, advocacy and the law.

The post PRESS RELEASE | Parliamentarians’ pension fund balks at transparency  appeared first on Open Secrets.

20 MAY 2025 (Cape Town) – Open Secrets has filed an application at the North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria to review the conduct of the Hawks and the NPA during their long-running investigation into corruption at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA). The application asks the court to declare unlawful both the delay in finalising the investigations by the Hawks and the NPA, and the related failure by the NPA to decide whether to prosecute the perpetrators.

Over a decade ago, the Hawks and the NPA began investigating the cohort of profiteers, including former group CEO of PRASA Lucky Montana, Sfiso Buthelezi, Roy Moodley, Makhensa Mabhunda and  Auswell Mashaba to name a few  who siphoned off R5 billion of public funds from PRASA during 2012 to 2017.

The PRASA looters’ modus operandi  has been well-documented by the Auditor General, the Public Protector, the State Capture Commission, investigative journalists as well as Open Secrets. Despite the mountain of evidence publicly available and numerous well-founded recommendations to prosecute those involved, no cases have yet been brought and no arrests yet made. The Hawks and the NPA have been investigating this case for over 10 years – an unjustified pattern of prolonged delays that plagues State Capture cases.

Open Secrets now asks the court to declare the Hawks’ and the NPA’s failure to complete the investigations and decide whether to prosecute unlawful and direct the conclusion of those processes.

Luthando Vilakazi, a lawyer at Open Secrets reflects: “This application is a step towards holding the Hawks and the NPA accountable for not fulfilling their important public duties to investigate and prosecute crime, and to sanction them for their irrational delay in concluding the investigation and deciding whether to prosecute”.

This application comes after Open Secrets published the Wanted: The State Capture Conspirators report in 2022, which exposed the enablers and beneficiaries of state capture corruption, including at PRASA, and a 3-part investigation in 2024 into the PRASA looters in particular. Without accountability by the criminal justice system, some of these alleged beneficiaries of corruption now sit in Parliament making laws on how to tackle corruption in South Africa such as Mkhonto Wesizwe representative Lucky Montana.

To date there is no accountability for the looting of PRASA, and Open Secrets demands that the Hawks and the NPA be jointly held to account for their failure to perform their duties within a reasonable time.

Open Secrets is represented by Power & Associates Inc. Attorneys, Adv Buhle Lekokotla SC and Adv Uday Naidoo.

The post BREAKING: Open Secrets Takes the Hawks and the NPA to Court for Failing to timeously hold the PRASA looters to account appeared first on Open Secrets.

Cape Town, South Africa

26 November 2024

On 25 November 2024, Open Secrets submitted a letter to Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber regarding the granting of South African citizenship to Swiss national and alleged war criminal Christoph Huber (Huber).

Huber has been the subject of credible and public allegations that he illegally exploited and appropriated natural resources from a conflict zone in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These alleged actions could constitute the war crime of pillage, a crime under international law whereby a perpetrator knowingly uses conditions of armed conflict to loot for their own benefit.

Emphasising the seriousness of these allegations, Swiss authorities confirmed in 2018 that Huber was being investigated for his activities. This investigation is ongoing. In April 2024, United States’ law firm Amsterdam and Partners published a report detailing alleged mineral smuggling in the DRC. The report calls Huber and his business associate “the backbone of Rwanda’s smuggling networks in central Africa”.

Despite this, Open Secrets’ investigation has shown that Huber was granted South African citizenship by the Department of Home Affairs, which is now headed by Democratic Alliance Minister Dr Schreiber. In Open Secrets’ investigation, Huber was also revealed to own four multimillion-rand properties in the country. 

South Africa has a duty to investigate and prosecute international war crimes. Open Secrets therefore demands answers from Minister Schreiber as to when and on what basis Huber was granted South African citizenship, which may have been in direct opposition to that duty. Open Secrets also notes a worrying double standard; an alleged war criminal who happens to be a wealthy European businessman can be granted citizenship and access to the attendant benefits, while vulnerable persons from across Africa seeking refuge and protection as asylum seekers receive far greater scrutiny from our authorities.

President Ramaphosa has previously stated that all foreign nationals must follow the laws of South Africa. We call on Minister Schreiber to ensure that wealthy European businessmen are not exempt from this. We should only open our borders to alleged war criminals when we intend to swiftly investigate and prosecute them.

The post Open Secrets demands answers from Home Affairs Minister Dr Schreiber regarding the granting of South African citizenship to alleged war criminal Christoph Huber appeared first on Open Secrets.

14 November 2024 | Cape Town

PRESS RELEASE

Today civil society organisations based in South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Senegal call on the South African National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to act swiftly on a criminal complaint, involving serious international money laundering offences.  The complaint was submitted to the NPA 19 months ago without any indication of action by law enforcement to seek accountability for these crimes.

Open Secrets, the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) and Le Congo N’est Pas Á Vendre (The Congo is Not For Sale) have issued this joint statement. These civil society organisations are concerned by the lack of action by South African law enforcement following the submission of evidence which shows how stolen Congolese funds were used to purchase South African properties by corrupt Congolese politicians.

In April 2023, Open Secrets, PPLAAF and Congolese organisations Congo Nouveau, Afrewatch and CDC/RN submitted a criminal complaint to the NPA. The complaint sets out how the adopted brother of former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – Francis Selemani – procured property in South Africa from the proceeds of corruption in the DRC. The hope was that an NPA investigation into Selemani would lead to the seizure of his South African assets and the proceeds returned to the Congolese people. Despite numerous attempts requesting updates on the status of the investigation the NPA has provided no formal updates on the matter since 9 April 2024.

Evidence within the complaint primarily originates from the unprecedented #CongoHoldUp investigation. In 2021, PPLAAF, Médiapart and their partners published findings from  #CongoHoldUp based on over 3.5 million documents that revealed how BGFI Bank was used to plunder the DRC public funds and natural resources, largely for the enrichment of former President Joseph Kabila’s inner circle. #CongoHoldUp included an investigative report by U.S based investigative non-profit, The Sentry called “Embezzled Empire’.

The report detailed how Francis Selemani stashed millions through the purchase of numerous luxury homes in the United States and South Africa, it appears at least in part using funds diverted from the Congolese government. Evidence from #CongoHoldUp and Embezzled Empire also informed the DRC case study in Open Secrets’ investigative report ‘For Sale- South Africa’s Property Laundromat’.

The urgency for action is clear. A new investigative alert released today by The Sentry reveals that six of Selemani’s 16 South African properties have already been sold to new owners since the release of #CongoHoldup. Lack of action by South African authorities has meant that as those properties are sold off, the money vanishes and becomes unrecoverable.

“An investigation into Selamani’s assets in South Africa is crucial, but real justice needs accountability both abroad and at home,” said Congolese whistleblower, Jean-Jacques Lumumba, “The people of the Congo have been exploited and continue to endure the impact of this corruption. Authorities must act and assets must be seized.”

Avenues for accountability have also been sought within the DRC. This week, DRC based coalition ‘Congo is Not for Sale’ has also called for accountability that urged local Congolese authorities to take action on the evidence against Kabila and his inner circle. 

Additionally, in 2023, the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office raided the office of the subsidiary of BGFI in France.Belgian authorities have opened two investigations, one for “corruption of foreign public officials” against Belgian millionaire Philippe de Moerloose, and another targeting the former governor of the Central Bank of Congo for money laundering. An investigation into dubious transactions in Switzerland is also targeting Kabila’s clan, de Moerloose, and Swiss banks.

South Africa’s failure to hold the corrupt accountable is one of the key reasons behind its greylisting by the FATF. It is imperative that cases like these are addressed by law enforcement agencies like the NPA. South Africa cannot be the playground of the world’s corrupt criminal elites. We call on the NPA to urgently take this matter forward and provide justice for the Congolese people whose lives and livelihoods continue to be stolen.

The post NPA has to investigate looted Congolese funds stashed in South African properties. appeared first on Open Secrets.

PRESS RELEASE| 2 July 2024 | Cape Town, South Africa

(Cape Town, South Africa)- On 20 June 2024, Open Secrets submitted a memorandum to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) motivating for the prosecution of Willem “Ters” Ehlers, a South African currently residing in Pretoria, for the offence of aiding and abetting the Rwandan Genocide. The memorandum was sent in terms of section 27 of the NPA Act which permits any person who has reasonable grounds to suspect that a specified offence has been committed, to report the matter to the NPA.

In May 2023, Open Secrets published the investigative report, The Secretary: How Middlemen and Corporations armed the Rwandan Genocide . The Secretary is a call to hold to account arms dealers and banks, like BNP Paribas involved in the Rwandan genocide. This investigative report is about the global nature of civil wars and genocide.

Ehlers, who currently resides in Pretoria, facilitated an arms deal on behalf of Théoneste Bagosora – one of the architects of the Rwandan Genocide  – whereby two large weapons shipments were flown to Goma (in what was then Zaire) and taken across the border to Rwanda. The transaction and subsequent shipment happened in June 1994 – at the climax of the Rwandan Genocide and in contravention of a United Nations arms embargo on Rwanda.

The memorandum, drawing on Open Secrets’ investigative work explains how Ehlers, secretary to former President Botha, established himself as a well-connected businessman in the early 1990s. When Theoneste Bagosora needed weapons, Ehlers was equipped to assist. Ehlers’ actions contributed to the exacerbation of the genocide and the devastating loss of life.

Open Secrets’ believes there is sufficient evidence to satisfy the elements of the offence of aiding and abetting genocide under customary international law. Holding Ehlers accountable is not only a matter of addressing past wrongs but also of setting a precedent that reinforces the rule of law and prevents future violations of international humanitarian law.

Open Secrets urges the NPA to rigorously investigate the evidence presented and to proceed with the prosecution in accordance with South Africa’s obligations under international law.

Read the memo

The post Open Secrets Petitions The NPA To Prosecute South African Willem Ehlers For Aiding And Abetting The Rwandan Genocide appeared first on Open Secrets.

MEDIA ALERT! Open Secrets seeks accountability for investigation into allegations of torture in the SANDF

In the past week a Open Secrets published “Russian Doll 3: Exposed- SANDF ‘Torture’ Squad” and “Russian Doll 4: The ‘SANDF’ Torture Squad Victim, Pule Nkomo speaks out’. On Sunday, Carte Blanche in partnership with Open Secrets also published a report into allegations of torture in the military.

This is a significant story of human rights abuse involving multiple units within the military and top brass who report directly to the Chief of the SANDF.

On 07 December 2023 Open Secrets undertook the following steps to ensure accountability:

Letter to President Ramaphosa (Commander in Chief)

On 07 December 2023 Open Secrets wrote to President Ramaphosa in his capacity as Commander in Chief of urgently intervene in the matter of extra judicial murders and killings.

Complaints to United Nations bodies

On 07 December 2023 Open Secrets wrote to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (DR AJ Edwards) and  United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions (Morris Tidball-Bin) calling for an international investigation into extra judicial murders and killings within the South African military.

Make public the Moorhouse report
On 06 November 2023 Open Secrets submitted a PAIA request to the SANDF requesting the release of Moorhouse Board of Inquiry report and associated documents into abuse of power in the military.

In addition to this we are making public SANDF documents which we believe are in the public interest.

The Ndawo letters – an SANDF whistleblower

We publish four letters which top Military Police official Thulane Ndawo sent to the Chief of the SANDF and other high ranking individuals alerting them to abuse of power within the military. These span a period between 2021 and 2023. We believe these letters lead to the establishment of the Moorhouse board of enquiry. These are internal SANDF documents which we publish in the public interest as they detail alleged abuse of power.

The post MEDIA ALERT! Open Secrets seeks accountability for investigation into allegations of torture in the SANDF appeared first on Open Secrets.