Corruption in high places.

The sacking of one of South Africa's highest placed black business executives following allegations of corruption has opened up a very nasty can of worms indeed. Corporate South Africa, including some of the country's biggest and most respected names, are squirming under the unwelcome spotlight.

The recent firing of one of South Africa's top business executives for "gross misconduct" has added to the latest string of corruption allegations currently rocking the ANC-led Government and its parastatals. Mr Sipho Nyawo, 33, one of the stars of the Government's black empowerment plans, had risen to giddy heights as an executive director of one of the country's largest corporations, the state-owned Transnet, before his fall from grace.

At the beginning of 1994, Mr Nyawo was appointed to Portnet, (a subsidiary of Transnet responsible for running South Africa's ports) as planning and development manager at the country's busiest harbour, Durban. In July this year, he was propelled up the corporate ladder to the position of executive director at Transnet responsible for Portnet.

The engine behind Mr Nyawo's meteoric rise was Ms Stella Sigcau, Minister for Public Enterprises who placed enormous faith in the young executive despite allegations of company credit card fraud.

Ironically, she also served to put the breaks on his executive rise when, in early November, she recommended he be dismissed. Her decision came after a retired judge conducted an inquiry that validated 65 charges, worth just over $10,000, against the high-flyer.

Ms Sigcau is herself, no stranger to corruption allegations. When she was part of the Government of the former 'independent' homeland of the Transkei, Ms Sigcau allegedly received a 'gift' amounting to about $10,000 from casino magnate, Mr Sol Kerzner, via a third party. The gift was allegedly part of a $430,000 bribe used to obtain a casino licence in the homeland. An inquiry carried out at the time found no evidence to prove that Ms Sigcau had been aware of the source of the funds.

But the story does not stop there. Although all eyes are focussed on young Mr Nyawo, his case has revealed a web of corruption and racial intrigue that spans the time-frame from the old South Africa into the new. Claims have been made that he was victimised by white old-guard executives and managers who feared the changes that were beginning to sweep across the country. Transnet have denied this but have announced that people across the board are being investigated. Nevertheless critics of Mr Nyawo's dismissal, including the mainly black South African Railway and Harbour Workers' Union, assert that such abuse at the corporation has been commonplace for years.

Indeed, one allegation claimed that the company's management had spent nearly $150,000, including the hiring of a Boeing 727-100, on a golfing holiday in Zimbabwe. This was later confirmed by Transnet. More recently, in November Transnet also suspended the legal services of a 74-year old law firm for allegedly leasing premises from Portnet and letting the property to a third party at a profit of over $200,000.

A local newspaper reported that white managers slowly compiled charges against Mr Nyawo while he held the Durban position and then released these to the media when he became a candidate for the post of executive director. Apparently he was never confronted during the time he was allegedly so busy abusing the Transnet's credit card. The conspiracy theory has been strongly denied by Transnet.

In a new twist, Portnet has cancelled contracts worth $100m with black empowerment companies. The awarding of the contracts has been part of Portnet's programme to help transform the complexion of business in the country. The reason given for cancelling the contracts is concern that some of the contracts were not sealed in an entirely transparent manner. The initiator of Portnet's transformation policy was none other than Mr Nyawo.

In the same week, an incident unrelated to the black empowerment plan saw three buying officers suspended after purchases worth millions of rands for "services not rendered", were uncovered.

Transnet Managing Director, Mr Saki Macozoma, has said some black firms mistakenly took the empowerment programme for granted; but he has also accused the white establishment of "demonizing" black management and exaggerating the problems at Transnet in order to drive down the price of the parastatal. The corporation is up for restructuring and partial privatisation.

In it heyday, the white regime was no stranger to corruption nor to climbing aboard the gravy-train, and the inept homeland governments were little better.

For example, Transnet's former Managing Director, Mr Anton Moolman retired this year to make way for former ANC politician Mr Macozoma. Mr Moolman secured a $260,000 salary in his final year, a $640,000 lump sum and a $13,000 monthly pension; Mr Macozoma receives an annual package of nearly $200,000. While this may be comparable with private sector salaries - Transnet after all has a turnover of nearly $3.5bn - questions have been asked about the quality of these parastatal executives, both past and present.

High profile scandal

Transnet's troubles follow a high profile Health Department scandal in which approximately $3m was paid to a theatre company owned by Mr Mbongeni Ngema for the staging of an AIDS awareness play. Proper tender procedures were not followed and the educational merit of the musical was questioned by AIDS educators.

A less publicised case but involving much larger amounts of money paid to 'ghost workers', was revealed by KwaZulu-Natal provincial Auditor-General, Mr Chris Foster. He believes there could be as many as 36,000 non-existent employees, getting paid a total of $28m a month. The Eastern Cape province, site of the former homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, has also been bedevilled by corruption.

However, Professor Tom Lodge of the University of Witswatersrand said it was very difficult to measure the current level of corruption. "I do not think it is universal and there is no evidence that it affects all Government departments across every level of Government like in other African countries such as Nigeria". He conceded however that corruption "in some departments is very entrenched and there is resistance to counter-measures. The police force is one area where it seems the most routine.

"There is probably more corruption in the provinces than in the National Government, especially those where the old homelands had to be incorporated into the provinces," he comments, adding that much of the corruption is a continuation of what has occurred for years. "There is tremendous naked greed among some of the new appointees to Government which matches that of their predecessors."

However, Professor Lodge believes that it is difficult to say whether there is more or less corruption now than before: "Today, there is much more public scrutiny than in the past, even in fairly remote areas." Thus his verdict would imply that the problem is as bad as it used to be but that now, it is probably harder to get away unnoticed.

International corruption expert at the University of Natal, Professor Rob Klitgaard, asserts that there is no evidence of the most serious form of corruption, that which occurs within the justice and banking sectors and which have the capacity to totally destroy investor confidence. Most worrying in his opinion, is corruption in the police force. Corruption in the Customs and Excise department, while not as problematic, was also a concern, said the professor Referring to graft outside of government, he believes that insider trading is a major problem because it tends to increase the concentration of assets instead of spreading wealth.

The South African Government's corruption scandals reveal a trite but accurate cliche: The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Time will tell whether the Government's oft-stated desire to root out illicit dealings can be achieved or not. More to the point, can South Africa's recent political miracle lead to similar changes in financial accountability?