South Africa’ Economic crime hits record levels; cost, accountability concerns rise

Seventy seven percent of SA organizations have experienced economic crime;fraud committed by consumers ranks as the second most reported crime in SA;CEO and board increasingly being held accountable for economic crime;Only 37 percent of respondents have conducted an anti-bribery/anti-corruption risk assessment;19 percent of organizations have spent between twice and ten times as much on investigations as the original amount lost to economic crime.
South African organizations continue to report the highest instances of economic crime in the world with economic crime reaching its highest level over the past decade, according to PwC’s biennial Global Economic Crime Survey released this week.
South African organizations that have experienced economic crime are now at a staggering 77 percent, followed in second place by Kenya (75 percent), and thirdly France (71 percent). With half of the top ten countries who reported economic crime coming from Africa, the situation at home is more than dire.
The Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey examines over 7200 respondents from 123 countries, of which 282 were from South Africa.
Economic crime in South Africa is now at the highest level over the past decade. It is also alarming to note that 6 percent of executives in South Africa (Africa 5 percent and Global 7 percent) simply did not know whether their respective organizations were being affected by economic crime or not.