#MotiFiles

In 2023 AmaBhungane came into possession of documents leaked from within the Moti Group of companies belonging to the flamboyant and controversial businessman Zunaid Moti. What emerged was a tale of political patronage and corporate intrigue that Moti tried so hard to quash it resulted in a landmark court ruling on media freedom.

Advocacy

AmaBhungane is a nonprofit accountability institution as well as an investigative journalism one. Our advocacy arm works to help secure information rights and media freedoms for our own journalists, the media more broadly in South Africa and the public interest. We work through strategic litigation, submissions to parliament and broader advocacy to push for law reform to make our democracy more resilient.

DEADLY WATER

Do we know the real story behind the collapse of the R291-million Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant project? Was the infamous tenderpreneur Edwin Sodi conned by his now-deceased business partner, as he has always claimed? Opinions remain divided on CMS Water boss Rudolf Schoeman Jnr – some see him as a maverick, others “the biggest bullshitter” they’d ever met. AmaBhungane went digging and found a trail of destruction across four provinces and a billion rand’s worth of critical infrastructure projects incomplete. Deadly Water is amaBhungane’s first podcast, told by the journalists who did the digging.

IDT Mistrust

Based on a trove of thousands of pages of procurement documentation from the Independent Development Trust (IDT), amaBhungane exposed allegations of fraud, political interference and internal cover-ups within this critical state entity. Tasked with delivering critical social infrastructure, what instead emerged was a pattern of mismanagement and manipulation involving senior government officials and politically connected contractors.

Karpowership

A 20-year “emergency” contract? When the R218-billion deal with Turkey’s floating powerships appeared on the horizon, amaBhungane started digging.

PetroSA

Who profited when the lights went out? The biggest beneficiary of loadshedding was the Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (PetroSA). This state-owned entity has been technically insolvent for years, but thanks to diesel sales to Eskom, an aggressive push for offshore gas, and a host of politically-tainted deals, PetroSA is hoping for a comeback.

Scam Empire

AmaBhungane is part of an international consortium of journalists who have gained access to a colossal leak of data from within one such operation, an astonishing and highly organised multinational syndicate simultaneously operating dozens of platforms around the world. Its tentacles spread from the UK and Australia to Poland, Japan and, crucially, South Africa. Exacting records show the scale of the cynical exploitation of aspiring “traders”, the tricks of the trade and the reliance on fakery, shell companies and tangled local and international financial arrangements. And yes, more or less everyone loses their money.

Steinhoff

Soon after the South African corporate giant, Steinhoff, collapsed in 2017, amaBhungane began investigating how the fraud was conducted, who knew about it, and how it was covered-up for so long. We sought access to the forensic investigation report and, when our request was refused, began a lengthy court battle challenging the refusal and broad secrecy around South Africa’s biggest corporate fraud.

The #Laundry: City of Gold

Money laundering is the organised crime enabling all other organised crime, though it sometimes occupies a legal grey zone. AmaBhungane has embarked on a major series to pierce the secrecy and obfuscation that are central to the enterprise.