Black Business Council chief executive Kganki Matabane says it is worrying that the South African government is not showing any willingness to deal harshly with Bain.Image: Supplied.
Civil society has continued to call for the South African government to impose severe sanctions on the disgraced global management consultancy Bain & Company.
The British government last week blacklisted Bain & Company from doing business with the state for three years due to corrupt reports it produced for the South African Revenue Service (Sars) at the height of the State Capture years.
This comes after the Zondo Commission into State Capture found that Bain was irregularly paid around R164m as third-party consultants when Tom Moyane was appointed as Sars Commissioner.
The Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF), on Friday, called on South Africa’s government to follow in the footsteps of the UK government and ban Bain.
HSF director Nicole Fritz said the UK government could only be applauded for its momentous decision but South Africans must wonder why their own government has taken no equivalent action.
Fritz said the UK’s decision recognised that Bain’s operations in South Africa were no “rogue unit” within its global network of consultancy services but integrally entwined.
“It is to be welcomed indeed that corporate actors who sought to enrich themselves from South African State Capture earn global shame,” she said.
“But it sends the most troubling message if the stiffest penalties they earn are from authorities other than our own.”
The Zondo Report recommended that all Bain's contracts with state departments and organs of state be re-examined for regulatory and constitutional compliance.
However, the South African government has remained mum on the state of its contracts with Bain and there has been very little comment from organised business lobby groups.
The business sector has been critical of certain companies such as auditing firm KPMG, consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and global software giant SAP who have had to repay some monies they received via irregular contracts with the government.
The Black Business Council chief executive Kganki Matabane said it was worrying that the South African government was not showing any willingness to deal harshly with Bain.
“What we think is lacking in South Africa is (the) political will to take tough decisions, to hold big business to account,” Matabane said.
“The way the South African government has treated Bain, McKinsey and others, is basically saying to them you can do bad things and you can be involved in corruption and destroy our SOEs and you can still do business with the government.”
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) refused to be drawn to comment on Friday.
Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) also declined to comment, saying Bain had stopped being a member of BLSA in January this year.
In January, BLSA chief executive Busisiwe Mavuso defended keeping Bain as a member, saying that the firm was not “inherently corrupt” before the company voluntarily quit a week later.
Acting director-general of the National Treasury Ismail Momoniat has reportedly called on companies in the private sector both locally and abroad not to do business with Bain, saying what Bain did to destroy Sars was akin to treason.
Pan-African Investment and Research Services chief executive Dr Iraj Abedian said corrupt corporations should not only be blacklisted but also prosecuted.
“Bain, KPMG, McKinsey, SAP, and many enablers of State Capture continue receiving government and corporate sector support in South Africa,” he said.
“Neither the government nor business are serious about fighting corruption. As citizens we should blacklist all SA businesses that support these corrupt multi-national corporates.”
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