Open Secrets: Unaccountable

Questionable decision-making, poor leadership and political interference have collapsed public trust in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). The current leadership at the authority, lead by Shamila Batohi, has yet to bring about change to address the wrongdoing that has left it vulnerable to corruption.

Who are the board members and executives at Prasa who enabled 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.

Who are the shady corporate bosses who derailed Prasa? In this instalment of Unaccountable, we shine a light on Roy Moodley, a politically connected businessman whom employees at the state-owned railway company would call ‘Mr Prasa’, according to testimony at the Zondo Commission.

The ‘Big Four’ audit firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — all play a systemic role in economic crimes and State Capture.

The people of Mozambique have been battered by devastating cyclones and an increasingly virulent armed insurgency in the north of the country. The backdrop is a country battling State Capture. This involves a coterie of corrupt politicians, multinational corporations and international banks.

In installment 00024 of Unaccountable we focused on middleman Auswell Mashaba and his shelf company Swifambo Rail Leasing, which was used as a front by Vossloh España to secure a lucrative contract with Prasa that resulted in the SOE spending billions on trains that were too tall for SA railways. This week we turn to the German railway giant Vossloh, and its Spanish subsidiary, Vossloh España, which fraudulently secured the R3.5bn contract through a process riddled with serious procurement irregularities, fronting and suspicious payments.

The people of Mozambique have been battered in recent times by devastating cyclones and an increasingly virulent armed insurgency in the north of the country. The backdrop is a country battling state capture. This involves a coterie of corrupt politicians, multinational corporations and international banks.

Who are the shady middlemen who derailed Prasa? We turn our attention to Auswell ‘tall trains’ Mashaba, whose business Swifambo Rail Leasing is one of the locomotives of corruption at Prasa.

The link between corruption and lived experience is nowhere more obvious than the erosion of passenger train services in South Africa. Prasa’s service has declined so dramatically over the past decade that the majority of working-class South Africans who once relied on the affordable service have had to turn to more expensive modes of public transport.

Where is the Transnet loot and why hasn’t it been recovered? Given the government’s recently announced austerity measures targeting social spending, this question demands an urgent answer.