South Africa launched its third National Action Plan (NAP) on Friday, which includes a high-level commitment to creating a public register of beneficial ownership information.

The NAP was part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) discussions, which were held in Cape Town, this week.

Corruption Watch, as a participant in Transparency International’s (TI) Unmask the Corrupt campaign, had been calling on the South African government to implement the G20 high-level principles on beneficial ownership, which it said government had thus far failed to honour.

Brazil and South Africa were featured in TI’s report on beneficial ownership, released at last year’s G20 meeting in Turkey.

The report stated that the two countries were lagging the most in addressing basic aspects of transparency in business practices, including providing critical information about the real owners of companies, which would make it more difficult for the corrupt to hide or move money across borders.
 
The move towards making this information public was welcomed by civil society organisations that had long been pressing for not only the creation of a register of beneficial ownership, but also for this to be publicly accessible.

“However, a major point of concern is the lack of provision for civil society cooperation in the plan. This is contrary to the principles and ethos of the OGP, which seek to ensure genuine dialogue and collaboration between governments and civil society,” said Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis.
 
He added that although the NAP also emphasised compliance with the G20 principles, Corruption Watch believed the implementation of this commitment should go further by including the creation of a public register, not specified in the current plan. 

Corruption Watch said it would continue to actively engage with government on the issue of beneficial ownership, which included monitoring the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill and ongoing interaction with the National Treasury.