Come on have a guess what is now considered one of the most dangerous jobs in South Africa today? I would have thought driving one of those cash in transit vehicles that collects payroll or tops up the ATM machines. Maybe a petrol station teller because I know previously the foreman on the forecourt who handled all the money was the toughest most dangerous job in the country before things were changed. Possibly a policeman or working for a private security firm.
Believe it or not one of the most dangerous jobs now is a business rescue practitioner which is someone who steps in to help sort out a failing company. Business rescue is administered by a bank appointing a practitioner when they believe a company has a chance of being turned around. The business rescue practitioner handles and checks all out going payments making sure the spend is above board and paying creditors. Roughly 12% of all businesses going into rescue mode are successful which is not very encouraging.
This sounds like madness, but just in the 12 months of 2022-2023 there were 13 assassinations of business rescue/insolvency professionals reported. One prominent liquidation/insolvency lawyer was murdered at the beginning of September this year and how I came across this topic. These practitioners make the calls whether a company can be saved or not and often step in controlling a company for around 24 months before handing back over to the owners once things have stabilized.
The problem is many of these business practitioners uncover fraud and corruption during their investigations and are knocked off for knowing too much information. When a good business suddenly starts under performing there can only be a few reasons and when you find internal corruption the business is still a good business with bad owners or employees.
I know as I am visiting a company next week that is having roughly R80K ($4.5K) stolen by an employee or employees on one product they purchase. If they are this corrupt with one purchase I know of then what else is happening internally? Unfortunately this is all too common and it is actually easy to spot if you know the product. I can tell within 30 minutes of walking around a company if they have a problem or not through the knowledge of the product I supply. My last 3 out of 4 company visits have had problems with corruption and I have one more on Monday which I already know so this is 4 out of 5 and these were random companies I had selected initially.
This week I was at another company which I wrote a post on about the numbers not adding up. The reason I know is I know my product and when I counted roughly 1000 pallets in storage in the one section of the company yet this section uses 520 rolls of pallet wrap per month. One of these larger rolls they use can wrap around 40 pallets so 40 x 520 gives me 20 800 pallets. Either the roll is not what it says on the label which sounds like this is the case here because my maths tells me they should be using at tops 200 rolls per month. I am no business practitioner, but immediately spot a problem that I am not even looking or knowing there is a problem.
I am sure the same way a business rescue practitioner spots a problem is by having a general knowledge of business in general making things obvious when they are not adding up. I have seen similar scenarios with the top retail giants in the country and have been blocked twice from supplying due to someone internally having their fingers in the pies. The one company I calculated they were being frequently robbed of over $20K per month and I am sure I was not welcome.
Many who expose corruption have been eliminated whilst doing their jobs of enforcing corporate accountability. I did not know things were this bad and it does sound wide spread. If you as an owner or director can show that your company is struggling making ends meet each month, but behind the scenes are robbing it blind out of sight of the tax man you are probably making more money. The taxing in SA is very high for companies and wealthy individuals that it now seems crime does pay. The sad and worrying part about all of this is this will only deteriorate if the taxes are raised even more.