Bantu Mniki Frankly speaking Business leaders must confront corruption openly

Tech company EOH CEO Stephen van Coller has been lauded as something of a hero in SA’S corporate world.

The main reason for such praise is the rare way he has done what should simply be the right thing under normal circumstances.

“There is no other company that has been of greater assistance to the commission in relation to investigations of historical wrongdoing within its ranks.”

This is what the Zondo Commission report said of the man who spearheaded investigations of corruption within the company he leads.

Zondo went on to identify Van Coller’s attitude and actions against corruption as unique within the private sector.

The usual reaction to reports of corruption by big companies is to try and minimise the reputational damage by covering up such crimes.

Considering the resources at the disposal of business leaders, it is not too difficult to take actions that achieve this effect.

Most cases of corruption exposed by the Zondo commission are in the public sector, by politicians and government officials. The normal reaction even there is to try to cover up incidents of corruption.

Very often when whistleblowers report corruption they become victims of harassment, loss of jobs, violence and even murder.

As a matter of fact, if it were not for the media, particularly investigative journalism, we might never have uncovered some of the deep corrupt activities that have collapsed the public sector.

What is refreshing about Van Coller is his attitude towards corruption, how to deal with it and the reasons behind dealing with it.

Often, we think of heroes as people who do things simply because of the goodness of their hearts.

Yet reality often tells us that heroes are people who do what must be done after having got a good grasp of the realities related to the situation at hand.

Van Coller himself is aware of this, and one suspects he might even hold the view that he is not a hero, but simply a man who understood what must be done and had the courage to do it.

“Second, if shareholders wanted any of their value back from EOH we had to do it. We had to know what went wrong.

“We had to be transparent about it, we had to put in measures to make sure it is unlikely to happen again and we had to criminally prosecute the people responsible,” Van Coller, who was Sunday Times newsmaker this week, said.

What is worth noting is that Van Coller put the shareholders ahead of himself. As someone who was a custodian of a company that belonged to someone else, he was faithful to the owners.

While this should be normal behaviour for anyone given a mandate to do a job, it has become rare in SA.

If we could revive this attitude among all people who hold leadership positions in SA, both in the private and public sector, we could turn this country around in record time.

Considering that SA ultimately belongs to the people of SA, and all of them, imagine if all leaders had Van Coller’s attitude of honestly serving the owners, what strides we could make.

Another thing worth noting about Van Coller is his attitude towards corruption in that corruption requires transparency if it is to be dealt with properly.

It is not possible to learn anything about what went wrong and how it could be prevented if things are covered up.

Yet leaders, both in the private sector and in the public sector, make cover-ups the goto reaction when things go wrong.

In this way they rob not only those who are alive now, but they rob future generations of valuable knowledge and forewarning for well-known and costly traps. It is exciting that Van Coller calls out his colleagues in the private sector for falling into this very trap of treating corruption in a manner that amounts to a loss for the country. He points out that simply firing executives who are involved in corruption is not enough. They must be prosecuted in the manner that EOH did to also send a message about how intolerable corruption is. “I would love to see more corporates being upfront and open about cleaning up corruption,” Van Coller said. I am sure most South Africans would love to see the same. If business leaders like Van Coller continue to confront corruption openly like this in the private sector, we might just see it disappear in the public sector too.

Yet reality often tells us that heroes are people who do what must be done after having got a good grasp of the realities related to the situation at hand