Jewish leaders take the lead in fight against corruption

JORDAN MOSHE

Gill Marcus, the Former Deputy Finance Minister and Governor of the Reserve Bank; former South African businessman Sir Mick Davis, currently Chief Executive and Treasurer of the British Conservative Party; and Professor Michael Katz, Chairperson of ENSafrica, have all been called to serve on commissions of inquiries into corruption.

Marcus this week began her term as one of three commissioners in the commission of inquiry into allegations of impropriety at Africa’s biggest money manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC). She will assist Justice Lex Mpati, who was discharged from active service to be a commissioner at the inquiry.

Appointed in October last year by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the commission will investigate allegations of impropriety at the PIC, which invests the bulk of the pensions of public servants on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund.

On 14 December, Sir Mick – who lives in London – was appointed by Ramaphosa to be a part of the eight-person task team to advise government on managing the financial and operation crisis at Eskom. Davis, who was once Eskom’s chief financial officer, will review the turnaround strategy submitted by the Eskom board.

Katz is investigating possible corruption at the South African Revenue Service (SARS). Together with Robert Nugent, a former judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal and others, Katz was last year tasked by the president with probing possible corrupt and illegal practices at the tax authority during the tenure of suspended Commissioner Tom Moyane. They are also assessing the effectiveness of the administration in performing its functions.

With a mandate including a probe into whether SARS compromised its procedures, the commission is investigating whether favour or discrimination occurred against influential people including politicians or their families and known close associates. The commission was required to submit an interim report by September, and a final report by November last year.

The commission submitted its final report to Ramaphosa in December. This included several recommendations including that contracts be set aside, expenditure recovered, and criminal prosecution be pursued against Moyane.

A giant in the fields of law, taxation, and corporate governance, Katz has made an enormous contribution to the success and stability of the South Africa’s corporate, legal, and financial sectors. As chair of ENSafrica, he specialises in corporate and commercial law. In a career that spans more than 50 years, he was appointed by the South African government to chair the Commission of Inquiry into Taxation in 1995 (known as the Katz Commission), and as part of this, nine “Katz Reports” were completed under his leadership.

Katz also chaired the Committee for the Restructuring of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange to review the organisation’s structure and operations, and was on the board of directors of the South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup. In addition, he has received various academic appointments and lifetime achievement awards. He has had considerable involvement with the South African Jewish community, where he served first as national chairman and then as president of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies.

Marcus rose to prominence within the ANC while living outside of South Africa from 1969. She joined the Communist Party and the ANC, working for the latter’s information-gathering department, becoming deputy secretary for information, and later the editor of a news bulletin which followed developments in South Africa.

After spending twenty-one years in exile, Marcus was among the first ANC members to return to the country when the party was unbanned in 1990. After a stint running the ANC’s department of information and publicity, she went on to be elected to Parliament in the April 1994 election, becoming chairperson of the Joint Standing Committee on Finance in the National Assembly. She was appointed deputy finance minister in 1996, and deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank in 1999. She held the position of Reserve Bank governor from 2009 until 2014.

The task team Davis is a part of has extensive expertise in electricity, management, and economics geared towards assessing the power utility’s operational, structural, and financial viability.

Born in South Africa in 1958, Davis attended Theodor Herzl School in Port Elizabeth, and went on to attend Rhodes University, becoming a chartered accountant by profession.

After serving as senior manager with accountants Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co, Davis was appointed executive director of Eskom before joining Glencore in 1994. He served as executive chairman of Ingwe Coal Corporation from 1995 until his appointment in 1997 as chief financial officer and executive director of Billiton.

Davis also served as chief executive of multinational mining company Xstrata from 2001, but left after the company was taken over by Glencore in 2013. Subsequently, he formed mining venture X2 Resources. He was also president of the council of members and chairman of the board of trustees of the Jewish Leadership Council of the United Kingdom, the umbrella body of the largest Jewish charities and institutions in the UK.

Owing to his chairing of the UK Holocaust Memorial Commission, Davis was appointed a knight bachelor in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Involved heavily in politics, he was also appointed treasurer of the British Conservative Party in 2016, and chief executive of the party the following year.