…catastrophic…

People feel there is no hope

…and often covert

It's like bloody Monopoly money

Corruption costs the world nearly $3trn every year…

…and blights the lives of hundreds of millions

But in some parts of the world…

…there's a renewed drive to disrupt corruption

We need to act with urgency and purpose…

…to restore our state-owned enterprises

From bold moves at the top...

We've got to make sure that there's strong, committed, ethical leadership

…to new technologies shining a light on the problem

Now in Ukraine we have the most transparent corruption in the world

Communities, companies and countries are learning lessons…

…in how to root out corruption…

Our country changed to one of the obvious technological leaders

…hold the guilty to account…

This was one of the largest cases the SFO had worked on

…and challenge the culture that allows it to continue

Do we accept the way it is or do you stand up for something?

This is a notoriously violent and lawless district of Cape Town in South Africa

Here in Cape Flats there were almost 1,000 murders…

…in the first six months of 2019

And police corruption is helping to fuel this violence

Alcardo was a year old here so we decided to give him a little party

He grew up in the community as a teenager

He got married, had one kid…

…and then in 2015 he was murdered

Avril Andrews says both she and the police know the identity of the killer…

…who shot her son, Alcardo, dead

But Avril believes police corruption has stalled her search for justice

Corruption affects our community very much

I've experienced it myself in police…

…even with the recent case

One of the guys tried to intimidate my family

Our community is going down, people feel there is no hope

Since her son's death Avril has spoken out publicly at great personal risk…

…against the corrupt forces undermining the rule of law in her community

Alcardo, this is the fourth year that we are seeking justice

There are certain things that you've discussed with me…

…that you would have loved to do in the community…

…so I'm doing it for you

I believe we're going to get justice

In South Africa the police are known to supply weapons to gangs

In 2016 a former police colonel pleaded guilty to illegally selling 2,400 guns

Most ended up in Cape Flats…

…where nearly 2,500 shootings have been linked to illegal guns since 2010…

…including 261 child victims

Within the South African police, anti-corruption campaigners…

…have documented over 475 reports of bribery…

…and over 300 reports of abuse of power

Avril has founded a support group for bereaved mothers…

…campaigning for justice in the face of this corruption

Thank you ladies for being here

In the past six years 229 dockets, records of court proceedings…

…are reported to have gone missing in Western Cape

Lesley Wyngaard, whose son was also murdered in Cape Flats…

…says the files related to his case…

…mysteriously disappeared from the court house

The prosecutor told me, “I had the file”…

…“I had the file”, so somebody sneaked that file out of his office…

…and made it disappear

In South Africa the rot of corruption runs deep

This secretly recorded footage captured a successful businessman…

…Gavin Watson, seemingly organising to pay bribes to government officials

One, two, three, four, five…

…six, seven, eight, nine, ten, brother

Watson, who died in 2019…

…was a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle…

…and had close links to the ANC party…

…which has been in power for 25 years

That's bloody monopoly money

Yes

During the nine-year presidency of Jacob Zuma…

…this corruption captured the state…

…right up to the very top

He and his cronies plundered state-owned enterprises

In Zuma's second term alone, about $100bn was stolen…

…just short of a third of South Africa's GDP

But South Africans demanded change and in 2019 they elected…

…a new president on an explicit platform to crack down on corruption

Cyril Ramaphosa has set out to provide the clean leadership…

…that is vital in any fight against corruption

We need to act with urgency…

…and purpose to restore our state-owned enterprises

Those who monitored the excesses of the Zuma years…

…are hopeful his successor will drive change from the top

Corruption Watch has been in existence for eight years now…

…mostly during the Zuma administration…

…and working with the two administrations is like night and day

We now encounter an administration that is…

…much more willing to work with the likes of us

Doesn't mean that we don't have to be vigilant…

…in holding them to account…

…but there's definitely a new spirit afoot in the country…

…although still huge problems to overcome

The new leadership has already begun to make its mark

I think it's achieved a fair amount in the period since…

…Ramaphosa was installed as president

Key Zuma acolytes who were leaders of critical institutions have been fired…

…others put in their place

State-owned enterprise boards have been revamped

But fighting corruption on this scale…

…demands more than just political leadership

Commission chairperson Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo…

…announced yesterday key appointments to his commission

In 2018 Judge Raymond Zondo was appointed…

…to head an unprecedented commission of inquiry…

…into how corruption captured the state under the Zuma administration

We want to have an idea about the levels of corruption in the country…

…and what forms corruption takes, and so that we can make…

…recommendations as to what the country should do to try…

…and bring it up to the absolute minimum levels of corruption

The commission has heard thousands of hours of testimony…

…from over a hundred witnesses to fraud and corruption

Zondo's warts-and-all approach to exposing the problem…

…has been compared to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission…

…after the apartheid era

Above all it educates the public...

...it places before the public...

...exactly what happened…

…during the Zuma administration, which as you can imagine…

…was subject to a lot of false news and factual manipulation

With the truth now emerging, there's also a fresh push for justice

A new chief public prosecutor…

…has promised to clean up the National Prosecuting Authority…

…another institution infiltrated by Zuma's cronies

Shamila Batohi is a respected former lawyer…

…from the International Criminal Court in The Hague…

…and President Ramaphosa's most significant appointment to date

People know that it's not business as usual

If we want to be serious about addressing corruptions…

…we've got to make sure that there is strong, committed, ethical leadership

In Shamila Batohi's new job that means getting serious about enforcement

We've got to look at prosecuting the right people

That is where I think in the past the prosecution, the NPA, lost credibility

They failed to demonstrate that they were serious about tackling corruption

And that is not just within the NPA…

…but certainly within the broader law-enforcement space

This kind of leadership may start to convince South Africans…

…that rhetoric has finally turned into action

So I know that the people of South Africa are impatient, understandably so

They have every reason

What is the greatest deterrent to crime?

The certainty that there will be an investigation…

…that there will be a prosecution and there will be consequences

And the sad reality is that in South Africa…

…that wasn't the case in the recent past

While clean leadership is vital to tackling corruption…

…so is having the ability to spot it

In Ukraine, another country with a deep history of corruption…

…the struggle for greater financial transparency has been hard fought

In 2014 a violent revolution deposed…

…its notoriously corrupt president, Viktor Yanukovych

During four years in office…

…he and his associates stole an estimated $40bn from the public purse

Activists who helped to depose Yanukovych have since traced the flows…

…of this stolen money and helped to reveal the extent of his corruption

One of them is Max Nefyodov, now head of the customs service in Ukraine

So we are in Mezhyhirya, the infamous mansion…

…that belonged to ex-president Yanukovych

Yanukovych earned an official salary of about $100,000 a year…

…but he used the proceeds of corruption to build this lavish palace…

…on 345 acres of land outside the capital Kyev

This is a huge territory with big houses…

…and golf courses and boxing rings and restaurants…

…and his personal zoo with ostriches

It's a nice one

He has nice eyebrows

Kickbacks and bribes from government contracts…

…were one of the principal ways of stealing money from the state

$2bn a year used to be lost through government officials…

…paying over the odds for anything from building materials to medicines

One of the reasons why those in power could afford little luxuries…

…such as a gold-panelled chapel…

…limited edition John Lennon Steinway piano…

…and even toilet brushes encrusted with Swarovski crystals

Everything here was built, obviously using money siphoned from the budget

So basically all like a museum to the corruption

This kleptocracy was catastrophic for Ukrainians…

…denying them affordable health care and good public services

After Yanukovych was deposed, Max and other activists set about…

…changing the system that had allowed corruption to flourish

They determined that one thing in particular…

…would be vital to transform Ukraine…

…transparency

Specifically the ability to trace and track the flows of public money

The beauty of the system is that this is just sort of like a website…

…with explanation and open data

This online system made the bidding process…

…for government contracts more transparent

Now whenever government officials want to buy something…

…they must put out a tender on a single platform accessible to anyone

These are the ongoing tenders for the Kiev region

There are just over 10,000 ongoing tenders right now, worth €1.8bn

And these are the statuses of procedures…

…and so on and so on

Roughly a million tenders go through the system each year

And the system must openly log every bid for every government contract

As a combination of better usability…

…compulsory auctions and different mechanisms to fight collusion…

…and price fixing and different types of fraud…

…we're able to save about 7-8% of the value of each tender

It's estimated that the system, known as ProZorro…

…has contributed to reducing the cost of corruption to Ukraine…

…by $6bn per year since 2014

And the system is now being used in other countries

I'm actually proud that our country changed its position…

…from being one of the worst places for public procurement in the world…

…to one of the obvious technological leaders and pioneers in this area

But whilst greater transparency has helped Ukraine…

…to discover and expose corruption…

…the country still lacks a vital tool to tackle it…

…effective enforcement authorities to hold the guilty parties accountable

More than 11m documents—they reveal what's alleged…

…to be a global network of tax avoidance, evasion and money laundering

When the most ruthless of the Mexican drug cartels…

…wanted to hide their money they went to HSBC

In today's globalised world…

…enforcement agencies in wealthy countries face a challenge…

…to root out corruption and deliver justice

And they're increasingly deploying new technologies to help

So the investigation covered three decades across three business sectors…

…and seven different jurisdictions

This was one of the largest cases the SFO had worked on

In 2013 the Serious Fraud Office in London began investigating…

…systematic bribery by one of Britain's most prestigious companies…

…Rolls-Royce

Five years into their investigation…

…the SFO had gathered 30m documents and needed to determine…

…which could be used to prosecute the firm

We started reviewing it using the old method…

…which was just to use keyword searches and then instruct…

…independent barristers to review that material

And we needed to find a way to speed that up

Advances in technology meant that AI and machine-learning…

…based products became available that could help with this work

In the first use of AI in a British criminal case…

…the system was able to search documents 2,000 times faster…