Today the United States celebrates its “Freedom of Information Day”. It is supposed to provide an occasion to focus on issues of public access to information and transparency in the US government. Given the extensive capacity of United States agencies, particularly their intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the US possesses considerable information about the…
Address all apartheid-era economic crimes Open Secrets, through its attorneys the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at Wits University, has filed papers to intervene as a friend of the court (amicus) in the review of the Public Protector’s ‘Absa-CIEX’ report. The review proceedings, brought by Absa, the South African Reserve Bank, and Treasury, will…
People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime in South Africa Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg First Hearings: 3-7 February 2018 Call for Information and Witnesses The organising committee[1] for the People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime in South Africa hereby invites members of the public to submit information to be presented at the first hearings of the People’s Tribunal…
For Immediate Release: Why, after more than two decades of democracy in South Africa, is the apartheid archive still kept under lock and key? Secrecy is a key ingredient in the abuse of power and its legacy needs to be challenged. For these reasons, SAHA is going to court on Friday the 4th of August 2017…
The Public Protector, Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, released a controversial report on 19 June 2017 detailing the failure of the South African Government to implement the CIEX report and recover funds from ABSA. The report also calls on Parliament to amend the Constitution so as to change the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).…
A final, calculated act of vandalism by the apartheid state was the destruction of more than six-million pages of documents that had been generated by the state security agencies. Although an important part of our history went up in smoke above the steel furnaces outside Pretoria, a far greater volume of records remains largely untouched…
The people of Tunisia, the northernmost African country and epicentre of the recent Jasmine Revolution, conducted a peaceful election a few weeks ago, which has gone unnoticed by many South Africans. Situated on opposite ends of the continent, South Africa and Tunisia face similar social problems, such as high levels of youth unemployment and similar…
The death of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has renewed debate about his legacy, but there’s been little on its South African component. Even among Israelis, Sharon has long been a controversial figure. A career soldier, considered a brilliant strategist, but one with a history of insubordination, he brought to both his military and…
In order to fight corruption in South Africa, we must first understand it – and acknowledge its secret history at the centre of South African politics and business. It is no secret that South Africa has a problem with corruption. At every level of our society, in the public sector and in the private sector,…
