How banks enable the looting of our state

THE staggering revelation from the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) that R2 billion was siphoned out of Tembisa Hospital is not just another corruption headline. It is a postmortem on the moral collapse of our governance system.

- TAHIR MAEPA

It reveals a cancer that has metastasised fed not only by corrupt officials and politicians but by a banking sector that profits from the proceeds of crime while pretending not to see, while closing the accounts of black entrepreneurs, professionals, and organisations under the guise of reputational concerns, while they themselves being complicit in aiding criminal syndicates.

Under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), financial institutions are legally obliged to detect and report suspicious transactions. Yet billions flowed from a public hospital to a web of front companies and into luxury assets, without raising alarms.

This is not oversight; it is complicity.

South Africa is not unique. Across the world, banks have enabled criminal enterprises:

•Gupta Family / State Capture: Billions looted from Eskom, Transnet, and other SOEs were moved through South African and global banks, including HSBC and Standard Chartered. These banks ignored red flags while public money was siphoned offshore.

•Danske Bank (Estonia): Between 2007-2015, €200 billion in suspicious Russian and Azerbaijani funds were laundered through its branches. Internal warnings were ignored in the pursuit of profit.

•HSBC (Mexico & Colombia): In 2012, HSBC admitted to laundering nearly $900 million for drug cartels. Staff looked the other way while blood money flowed freely.