Inside SA’s welfare-industrial complex
With a new Covid grant, and demand for a basic income grant spiking, companies such as GovChat are getting in on the action. Is SA risking another Net1 debacle?
Investigative Report | Digital Profiteers: Who profits next from social grants?
The investigative report, Digital Profiteers: Who Profits Next from Social Grants, focuses on how the digitalisation of state services offers opportunities for corporations to generate excessive profits from digital systems that can harm vulnerable people.
WATCH | Social grants: the new frontier for digital profiteers?
Financial Mail | 22 November 2021 The FM and Open Secrets on November 25 hosted an online discussion on the dangers of the ‘digital welfare state’ In April 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa introduced a raft of social assistance measures to provide relief to struggling South Africans as the economy took a battering from Covid. Among…
Apartheid Banks: Explainer videos
The following is a recap of the work we’ve done on the Apartheid banks. Otherwise known as Belgium’s Kredietbank (now known as KBC Group) and its sister bank in Luxembourg (then known as KBL, but changed its name to Quintet Private Bank in 2020 shortly after Open Secrets handed over its docket to the NPA).…
Annual Report 2020-2021
This report reflects the energy and commitment of the Open Secrets team to investigating the powerful and using the law to hold them to account.
Unaccountable 00030: Sfiso Buthelezi
Who are the board members and executives at Prasa who enabled and participated in the looting of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa)? This week we turn to Sfiso Buthelezi, a former deputy minister of Finance and current member of parliament whose six years as Prasa’s first board chairperson saw the parastatal procurement process systematically undermined and its coffers drained.
Unaccountable Case File 00030: Sfiso Buthelezi
This is the repository of documents cited in the 30th profile of the Unaccountable series which focusses on the role of current member of parliament and former board chair of Prasa, Sfiso Buthelezi.
SIU and Transnet a step closer in clawing back R4,2billion from locomotive company
Cape Talk | 8 September 2021 Transnet and the Special Investigating Unit were on Tuesday granted a preservation order to freeze R4.2billion sitting in bank accounts linked to Chinese company, CRRC E-Loco Supply (CRRC). They supplied Transnet with locomotives between 2011 and 2014. Michael Marchant of Open Secrets speaks to Refilwe Moloto about the significance of the move.
The Watchdog
SABC News | 7 September 2021 Open Secret’s investigator Michael Marchant speaks to Vuyo Mvoko about corruption and the private sector.