Cape Town - The Helen Suzman Foundation has written to the United States Department of Justice to ask it to re-investigate state capture-complicit Bain & Co for potential breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA).
Last month the UK banned Bain and Co from tendering for government contracts for three years because of its “grave professional misconduct” in the role it played in the attempted capture of the South African Revenue Service (SARS).
The Zondo Commission’s report into state capture found that Bain’s involvement with Sars was unlawful and recommended that all Bain’s public sector contracts be investigated, with a view to prosecution.
The Nugent Commission of Inquiry into SARS also found that Bain had conspired with former commissioner, Tom Moyane, to weaken the tax collector.
Taking the lead from the Biden administration’s release last year of the United States Strategy on Countering Corruption (“U.S. AntiCorruption Strategy”) and the commitment expressed to rooting out corruption domestically and abroad, HSF director Nicole Fritz said: “Long before SARS had initiated a formal procurement process for consulting work, Bain SA had already leveraged its paid-for access to former President Zuma, to install itself as the consultant that would ultimately oversee SARS’s restructuring. It is worth noting that at the time, SARS was a world-renowned tax collecting institution and was in no need of restructuring.
“Bain SA knew this and, despite openly acknowledging its lack of expertise in tax collection, formulated a detailed plan that informed SARS’s illicit restructure,” her letter read.
“Prior to SARS’s formal procurement process beginning in December 2014, Bain SA had already produced a detailed strategy document for restructuring SARS and a ‘First 100 Days’ plan for its yet-to be-announced incoming head, Tom Moyane.”
Among the motivations for why the matter was worth further investigation, Fritz said this included that “Bain SA may well have contravened the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, by doing... things in order to win consultancy work at SARS: purchasing access to former President Zuma from Ambrobrite.
Neither the DOJ nor the government of South Africa could, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, have discovered Bain SA’s activities before, at the earliest February 2018, when the Zuma administration was replaced.
“Thus, the five-year statute of limitations applicable to the FCPA presents no bar to pursuing the case.
For this systemic damage, the effects of which continue to be borne most profoundly by poor South Africans in need of properly funded state services, Bain SA and Bain Global remain liable,” Fritz said.
Bain & Company maintained allegations that it took bribes and violated corrupt practices laws were not true.
“As far back as 2019, we have repeatedly offered our full cooperation to the relevant authorities.
“We remain ready to work cooperatively with any authority that approaches us and welcome the opportunity to clear our name.
“Statements that Bain took or paid bribes are completely untrue. Statements that Bain violated any corrupt practices laws are also completely untrue.”
The US Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
Cape Times