Off the wire
• South African President Zuma survives no-confidence vote  • Bulgaria's GDP growth expected to slow down to 2.1 pct in 2016: report  • New date set for Syria talks: March 9  • France's car sales climb 13 pct in February  • Eurozone unemployment falls to 10.3 pct in January  • Balance between two major human rights covenants crucial: UN official  • Rare painting of Henry VIII castle destined to leave Britain  • Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, March 1  • Commentary: Running for White House, or "Running for Governor"?  • Rollercoaster to reopen after horror accident leaves riders badly injured  
You are here: 　 Home

S. African companies experience more economic crimes

Xinhua, March 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

South African companies experienced the highest number of economic crimes in the world over the last two years, according to data released on Tuesday.

About 69 percent of South African organizations surveyed said they experienced economic crimes, losing between 100,000 and one million U.S. dollars during the period under review, said International audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which conducted the survey.

Releasing the survey in Johannesburg, Louis Strydom, the Forensic Services Leader for PwC Africa, said business has lost a lot as a result of economic crimes.

In the survey, PwC interviewed 6,337 companies in 115 countries from across many sectors. In South Africa 232 companies were interviewed.

Strydom said, "Economic crime remains a serious challenge to business leaders, government officials and private individuals in South Africa. In this survey, we have found that the trend has remained unchanged from 2014, with 69 percent of South African respondents reporting that they had experienced economic crime in the last two years."

About 70 percent of South African companies also reported that they think the law enforcement agencies are not properly trained and poorly equipped in terms of resources to fight crime.

This percentage is almost twice the global rate of 44 percent.

"When compared to the global statistic of 36 percent, we are faced with the stark reality that economic crime is at a pandemic level in South Africa. No sector or region is immune from economic crime,"Strydom said.

PwC also reported that 32 percent of SA's organizations (which is at par with global average) experienced cyber crime. South Africa is currently crafting a law to tackle cyber crimes.

The PcW report indicated that some companies do not have fully trained personnel to deal with cyber crime while some do have cyber incident response plan in place.

While 56 percent of the respondents in the country's top management said they would rather loose a deal than resorting to bribery, 15 percent from the private sector said they had been asked for a bribe in the last two years.

The PwC Forensic Services and Global Survey Leader, Trevor White said that while it is a positive sign that there has been increased detection by means of whistle blowing hotlines, far too much is being left to chance by organisations.

He said economic crimes discovered by accident more than doubled from six percent in 2014 to 14 percent in 2016. Another eight percent of survey respondents could not even tell how serious economic crimes against their organisations were detected.

PwC also stated that one in three of the country's organizations faced problems in getting skilled personnel in anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.

Many reported that they had to address the discrepancy after being visited by inspectors. Last year four big banks were fined about 125 million rand (about 9.7 million dollars) by the South African Reserve Bank for slack controls to detect property-associated terrorist activities and money laundering.

It is expected that the report would be used by policy makers, researchers and academics in crafting or advocating for the policy change or the way of doing things in the country. Endit