A small slip-up in the extensive redaction of documentation around potential 20-year contracts with the controversial Turkish Karpowership group has seemingly revealed that South Africa will pay far more than advertised.
The South African investment bank provided billions to one of the alleged pioneers of the alleged tax fraud dubbed “cum-ex” despite their client facing tax evasion investigations in four different countries.
The investment bank has been named in criminal investigations of its alleged involvement in a number of the infamous German “cum-ex” tax scam transactions. Of particular interest to prosecutors in Germany is the case of US pension funds that relied on Investec to make allegedly fraudulent tax claims.
A massive leak of German prosecutors’ documents has revealed how the investment bank took part in the epic European “cum-ex” scam out of its small Irish office. Approval for the bank’s participation in the schemes, witnesses and documentary evidence suggest, came from head-office in Johannesburg.
Test results have finally confirmed that pesticides – including known carcinogens – poisoned rivers, soil and beaches in Durban. Provincial authorities say they have opened a criminal case against agro-chemical giant UPL but for residents who were exposed to toxic fumes and contaminated water, there is a growing fear of the unknown long-term health effects.
Eight weeks after a fire at the UPL chemical warehouse, long-awaited test results confirm that chemicals contaminated soil and rivers leaving them “highly toxic”. But internal letters show that even UPL’s own experts disagreed over what the results actually meant for public safety.
Yet another court case has laid bare allegations the former chief executive of the Public Investment Corporation secretly signed away state pensioners’ claims worth hundreds of millions of rands to help his alleged friend, media mogul Iqbal Survé.
How did a warehouse storing tons of toxic and flammable chemicals, some banned elsewhere, quietly move in next door to a school, a Makro superstore and a wetland without anyone knowing?
Iqbal Survé’s Independent Media — and other companies in his Sekunjalo Investment Holdings stable — have moved dozens of workers to the legally unrelated but PIC-subsidised payroll of Ayo Technology Solutions. Among them is at least one journalist — the controversial former Sunday Times investigator Mzilikazi wa Afrika.
UPL, one of the world’s largest chemical multinationals, refuses to disclose what poisoned a Durban river, the city’s air and its beaches. Now amaBhungane has accessed the inventory, which includes suspected carcinogens, neurotoxins, chemicals that “may damage the unborn child” and tons of “highly caustic” substances that burn skin on contact.
Government’s strategy to address the country’s energy crisis — through its 20-year, multi-billion rand tender, has come under the microscope since energy minister Gwede Mantashe’s initial call for proposals in mid-2020. Allegations, as exposed by AmaBhungane, bring into question the true intent of those involved in the process. To know more about those allegations, dig into our archive of work on this controversial tender.
The South African contract Karpowership is chasing could be a game-changer for the group, making Eskom its largest client globally. What will we pay and how much will the Turkish conglomerate pocket? Dewald van Rensburg does the sums.
Hundreds of pages of “briefing notes” reveal that frustrated renewable bidders warned government that nonsensical rules of the emergency power programme would force bidders to burn fossil fuels and result in consumers paying more than they need to for electricity.
The bank has cut ties with 24 companies directly or indirectly controlled by Iqbal Survé’s Sekunjalo Investment Holdings. The move is reminiscent of the beginning of the end of the Gupta empire.
A 206-page indictment of suspects in the VBS Mutual Bank case has blown the lid off the patronage system beneath the scheme that destroyed the bank as well as the alleged shameless bribery that went with it.
Astonishing sums of public money were poured into a cooking-pot factory project which quickly sank under the weight of mismanagement. Amid the acrimonious fallout, the IDC – made to look foolish – has blacklisted a fellow development funder while court cases are mounting.
Controversial newspaper owner Iqbal Survé continues to side-step the state fund manager’s efforts to reclaim the fortune that its former boss threw his way. Meanwhile ever more of the PIC’s cash is being spent propping up the Survé empire.
Flamboyant tech firm executive Jehan Mackay made repeated payments to ANC functionaries over three years, the Zondo commission heard today [Wednesday]. An investigation commissioned by EOH found payments to the current deputy minister of state security, the then ANC Youth League treasurer and Jacob Zuma’s assistant.
In an extract from his new book, VBS: A Dream Defrauded, amaB investigator Dewald van Rensburg reveals how executives pulled out the stops to save their foundering bank with a R1-billion deposit from the passenger rail agency — a state-owned entity, if any, that could ill afford it.
A tax audit has pried open new details of the money laundering structure used by the crime family to fund the infamous wedding in Sun City with cash from the Estina dairy project. It turns out the wedding was only part of the story.
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