
South Africa has active investigations into alleged corruption totalling more than $7 billion at some of its top state-owned companies, according to a report published Tuesday by the national anti-graft unit.
The investigations are not new, and some have been running since 2018, and all of them were cited by the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) in a report to a parliamentary committee to give an update on the status of the probes.
Those investigations involve six state-owned businesses: ports and rail company Transnet, arms company Denel, power utility Eskom, the National Lotteries Commission, national airline South African Airways and passenger rail company PRASA.
Around 60 suspicious contracts and hundreds of cases of conflict of interest and other alleged corruption worth nearly $4 billion of public money are under investigation at Transnet alone, according to the report.
Also, there are nearly 40 other ongoing investigations into alleged corruption involving different state-run businesses and national and provincial government departments worth billions more dollars.
Current President Cyril Ramaphosa has pledged to clean up his party and government and bring those responsible to justice, but anti-corruption experts have said it’s unlikely that much of the money will be recovered.
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