{"id":784652,"date":"2024-07-29T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=784652"},"modified":"2024-07-29T12:16:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T10:16:50","slug":"how-corrupt-politicians-hide-their-luxury-cars-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/784652\/how-corrupt-politicians-hide-their-luxury-cars-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"How corrupt politicians hide their luxury cars in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Corrupt South African politicians, government officials, and tenderpreneurs use crooked car dealerships to buy luxury cars and avoid detection by SARS and lifestyle audits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa is beset by malfeasance, with municipal, provincial, and national officials stealing billions from the state through corrupt deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The private sector often joins in as government and state-owned enterprise contracts are highly lucrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the state-capture years, it was a free-for-all. Corruption linked to the Gupta family, Bosasa, Eskom, and Transnet became discussion points in everyday conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many high-profile politicians were mentioned in state-capture hearings, including Jacob Zuma, Nomvula Mokonyane, Malusi Gigaba, and Gwede Mantashe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large companies, including McKinsey, KPMG, SAP, Neotel, T-Systems, Bain & Co, PWC, and Bosasa, were also linked to corruption at state-owned enterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State institutions, including the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and South African Revenue Service (SARS), were weakened to protect wrongdoers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under President Cyril Ramaphosa, the government has started to rebuild capacity to address crime and corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa said tackling crime and insecurity remains a key priority for the government and his administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He promised to equip law enforcement agencies to ensure a safer and corruption-free South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), he said their first priority was to put a decisive stop to state capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It included dismantling the criminal networks within the state and ensuring that perpetrators faced justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe appointed capable people with integrity to head our law enforcement agencies, government departments, security services and state companies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government set up the Investigating Directorate as a specialised and multidisciplinary unit within the NPA to investigate corruption and other serious crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said, \u201cThis initiative has made great progress in bringing those responsible for state capture to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStolen funds are being recovered, freezing orders of R14 billion have been granted to the NPA\u2019s Asset Forfeiture Unit, and R8.6 billion in corrupt proceeds have been returned to the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another intervention is lifestyle audits. Last year, Ramaphosa said over 11,000 public servants in the national government had undergone lifestyle audits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, despite the actions taken to fight corruption in South Africa, it continues to be unabated at all levels of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are weekly reports of people stealing millions from the state. This week, for example, City Press reported that R123 million was looted from the National Skills Fund to buy luxury cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Press said<\/a><\/strong>, \u201cA farm, a Nissan Navara, and other luxury cars were bought with funds meant to uplift poor communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buying luxury cars without being detected<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Law enforcement agencies and SARS are trying to bring corrupt officials to book, raising the question of how they get away with buying luxury cars without being detected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lifestyle audits use eNatis data to check whether vehicles are registered in a person\u2019s name. This should expose corrupt officials who are buying luxury cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, information shared by former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter and investigative journalist Jeff Wicks explained that there is an easy workaround.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his book Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, De Ruyter explained how corrupt cartels and Eskom employees hid their luxury cars from the authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA car dealership in the coal belt specialised in housing fancy vehicles on behalf of their owners so that they didn\u2019t appear in lifestyle audits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The luxury vehicles were always held in the dealership’s name. Therefore, they were never transferred to the owner after they bought them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would be available on demand should the actual owner wish to take his Lamborghini for a spin on the potholed roads of Mpumalanga,\u201d De Ruyter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wicks explained<\/a><\/strong> that corrupt politicians and tenderpreneurs prefer using cash to avoid detection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that this cash is ‘washed’ through complex ‘laundromats’ of company and personal accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe following requirement is less than honourable car dealerships. We have been told of bags of money being dropped off at night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millions in cash are handed over to the dealership and the car is delivered, but ownership is never changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat car will then sit in dealer stock for all its life. There is no paper link to the beneficial owner,\u201d Wicks explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome dubious dealerships will hand over a wad of pre-signed temp plates. When one expires, put on a new one, and then there are no fines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The corrupt officials and politicians are typically tipped off before the lifestyle auditors come to visit their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe dealership employees will collect them in the dead of night. That way, having to explain this low-slung sportscar in your garage is scotched,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis way, our elected leaders never have to explain how they own cars worth several times their annual salaries, and they get to flex for the ‘slay queens’ at rockets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenderprenuers who do not face lifestyle audits also use cash. The cars are registered to unrelated businesses and proxies, but the beneficial ownership is unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: Huge fines for dodgy auditors in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter and investigative journalist Jeff Wicks explained how corrupt officials buy and own luxury cars without getting caught by SARS and lifestyle audits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":784653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20304,1293,20305,3246,20306],"class_list":["post-784652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-andre-de-ruyter","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-jeff-wicks","tag-sars","tag-state-of-the-nation-address-sona"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784652"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":784695,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784652\/revisions\/784695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}