Africa is vulnerable to climate change

By Agencies

THE African continent was particularly vulnerable when it came to increased risks of extreme weather events, delegates at COP17 heard yesterday.

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, presented the latest scientific findings on the impact of climate change, saying the continent faced disasters such as droughts linked to famine and food security, as well as storms, floods and cyclones.

The focus of yesterday's climate change negotiations was on development - and therefore particularly relevant to South Africa and Africa in general.

The Climate Finance Paper, formally presented yesterday afternoon by South African Minister of Planning Trevor Manuel, was subjected to close and sometimes critical scrutiny.

Some African countries felt that its focus on market mechanisms for the transfer of skills and technology was inappropriate for many developing countries, whose immature markets would have difficulty in leveraging such mechanisms.

Christiana Figueres, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary, was hopeful about the negotiations, however, and believes that countries now recognise that the climate agenda is in their national interest.

Speaking of the difficulty in making the changes required, Figueres said: "This is the largest and most deeply rooted revolution that mankind has ever seen, and that is why it is slow.

Kenya, SA have ‘highest levels of economic crime’

BY AGENCIES

KENYA and SA recorded the highest levels of economic crime among 78 countries in the past year, with the theft of assets and money in businesses and government agencies on the rise, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows.

In Kenya, which topped the list with SA second, corruption is "endemic". Corruption in the countries included bribery, accounting fraud and money laundering, says the consultancy firm’s Global Economic Crime Survey, released this week.

Attempts to stop corruption are failing. In Kenya, the incidence of economic crime of 66% was almost twice the list’s average of 34%. Also on the list were Britain, New Zealand and Spain, which had similar levels of fraud to Australia. Kenya ranked second-highest after SA in 2009 when the last survey on economic crimes was conducted.

Japan had the least economic crime, followed by Indonesia, Slovenia and Greece, the survey which included responses from privately owned, listed and government agencies, showed.

"Economic crime is on the rise globally, but is accelerating in Kenya," said Martin Whitehead, a partner at PwC and head of its forensic services unit.

Mr Whitehead said economic crime was expanding because many Kenyan organisations had a cavalier attitude towards the problem and do not report the crimes to the police, while others cited a lack of confidence in the judicial process.

Most white collar perpetrators were males between 30 and 40 years old who had at least a university degree and usually had worked for about 5 years in the company they were defrauding, Mr Whitehead said. "Although some companies are getting tougher, an awful lot are not. Some say it is of no use to report to the police or take civil action. It is a long process, nothing will be done," he said.

More than a third of businesses and other organisations around the world were victims of economic crime in the past 12 months, according to respondents. Nearly a quarter of victims said they were subject to cybercrime - the use of technology as the main element in economic crime. Overall, 34% of respondents said their organisations were victims of economic crime, a 13% increase since 2009.