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Blowing the whistle on fraudsters

South Africa’s corporate governance performance received a welcome boost recently with the launch of Tip-Offs Anonymous, a joint venture between Deloitte & Touche, the professional services firm, and Brian Adams & Associates, the security consultancy.

Tip-Offs Anonymous was established to help blue-chip corporate, parastatal and government departments subscribers fight commercial crime. In the first half of 1998, 29,556 cases of commercial crime involving R2,2 billion were reported to the SAPS, but more than 90 percent of fraud is thought to have gone unreported or undetected, with costs running into tens of billions of rands.

Vassi Naidoo, Deloitte & Touche’s chief executive elect, said that statistics such as theses had resulted in the introduction of a service that enabled clients’ stakeholders to “blow the whistle on crime and workplace dishonesty.”

Durban-based Tip-Offs Anonymous is totally independent. Through its R3,5 million high-tech call-centre, it provides secure freephone, e-mail, fax and mail facilities for management, employees, suppliers and customers to report workplace dishonesty in complete confidence and anonymity.

Brian Adams, the chief executive of the new venture said, “We have so far made 60 presentation to blue-chip corporates and not one has turned down our service. We already have 30 subscribers in the pipeline.” Naidoo, whose firm holds a majority interest in the venture said, “One of the purposes of Deloitte & Touche .. is to be a custodian of good governance. This will contribute to stopping crime in the first place.”

Guy Brazier, a Tip-Offs Anonymous executive, said the hotline was not intended to replace the SAPS’ line, but rather to add value to corporates as part of their overall governance process.”

For details contact Tip-Offs Anonymous on tel: (011) or fax: (011)

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