That the number of investigations into foreign bribery is up is encouraging‚ but success should be measured in terms of the “prosecutions and sanctions” that follow.

That’s the opinion of Corruption Watch’s executive director‚ David Lewis following the release of Transparency International's 2015 Progress Report entitled “Exporting Corruption”‚ which concerns the enforcement of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention”.

South Africa‚ which is a signatory to the OECD‚ “once again…has been found lacking in its commitment to investigate and prosecute cross-border corruption‚ that is allegations of South African companies bribing foreign officials in order to secure contracts or licences and concessions”.

Corruption Watch said the report shows that “SA has not investigated any major foreign bribery cases in the past four years”‚ and while there “has been progress in smaller‚ less prominent cases…none have been completed to date”.

The watchdog‚ however‚ did find it reassuring that “the number of cases picked up in the last year has increased three-fold in comparison with the previous three years (2011 to 2013)”.

This‚ it said‚ signalled “the start of a more proactive approach to uncovering cases of foreign bribery”‚ which singled out the “the strengthening of the Anti-Corruption Task Team by the SA government as a progressive step towards complying with the Anti-Bribery Convention”.

“While the increase in the number of investigations of allegations of foreign bribery is encouraging‚ in order to meet our commitments under the Convention we will have to see these investigations resulting in prosecutions and sanctions‚” said Lewis.

Corruption Watch is the local chapter of Transparency International‚ whose “progress report is an independent assessment of the enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention”.