Eighty-four per cent of sub-Saharan African companies experienced fraud in the last year, the 2015 findings of the Kroll Global Fraud Report 2015-2016 has revealed, with South Africa perceived to be the most corrupt country in the region.

This resulted in an average loss of 1% in revenue and was mostly caused by the theft of physical assets, vendor or procurement fraud, corruption and bribery and misappropriation of company funds.

The report further revealed that the biggest drivers of increased fraud was a result of high staff turnover, entry into new markets and increased outsourcing and offshoring.

Speaking at an anticorruption briefing hosted by the French–South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, global audit, accounting and consulting group Mazars forensic services national director Christo Snyman said that, to mitigate fraud through staff, companies had to ensure that it made the right appointments.

“The first thing I always say to my clients is to screen their staff properly, to check their backgrounds and ensure that they have not committed any fraud prior to the appointment, or have any criminal records,” he said, noting that appointing the correct staff member to the correct position also curbed the likelihood of corruption.

Meanwhile, the African edition of the Global Corruption Barometer, released by Transparency International and Afrobarometer last week, had shown that four of five South African citizens believed corruption was on the rise.

Citing the ‘People and Corruption: Africa’ survey, Snyman added that 18 of 28 governments covered by the survey were seen as fully failing to address corruption.

He called on whistle-blowers to step up to the plate to mitigate corruption, as he would “hate to see the figure reach 100%”, something he believed would happen “at the rate it is going now”.

Mazars Gauteng region forensic services director Keeran Madhav added that local legislation, such as the Prevention and Combatting of Corrupt Activities Act of 2004 and the more recent Regulation 43 of the Companies Act, with Section 72.4 of the Companies Act, which required each State-owned company, public or listed company to have a social and ethics committee was sufficient to bridle corruption, but that implementation and enforcement thereof was lacking.

“Corporations should start holding themselves accountable by designing compliance programmes that don’t just look good on paper, but that actually work,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said Botswana was considered a “shining light”, having had the lowest perception of corruption and fraud on the continent.