Zondo commission response

Alexforbes subscribes to the highest level of ethical business practices.  

We acknowledge the role the private sector must play in supporting and enabling good governance and ethical practices in South Africa.  

As a responsible corporate citizen and proudly South African Company, we stand up against corruption in Government, in State-owned entities, in the private sector and we will take pro-active action to protect our business and stakeholders against any forms of corrupt, fraudulent and unethical business practices.

In addition to being guided by our Code of ethics and ethics related policies and business practices, in 2022 we interrogated the Zondo Commission reports and analysed our own business practices against the lessons learned from these unfortunate governance and ethical failures. We are confident that our policies and practices are robust and will protect the Company and our stakeholders against abuse.  We however acknowledge that as human beings we are fallible and hence we will not rest assured purely because of these policies and processes, but will continue with training interventions and risk and assurance activities to maintain focus and oversight. 

We further acknowledge that we are measured by the company we keep and therefore also analysed the individuals and companies named in the Zondo Commission reports. 

We have identified companies and individuals that, because of their significant involvement in unacceptable unethical practices or high assessed risk, we principally wish not to have any business relationships with.

We have also identified companies and individuals where we will apply a higher level of due diligence, including requesting feedback on lessons learned or remedial actions implemented following their involvement in activities highlighted in the Zondo reports, prior to engaging in any business relationship.

We will not be unreasonable or punitive in our engagement with companies, as we accept that in many instances the actions were perpetrated by single individuals or small groupings and had not been systemic to the corporate. 

We encourage fellow corporates to follow similar processes in assessing the impact and relevance of the Zondo Commission reports in their own environments.  As a collective we are better placed to protect our beautiful country and its people against unethical business practices and corruption.