Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa August 2015 | Page 12

PROPERTY ALERTS

The
Bad

The
Good
Increased Awareness Of
Anti-bribery Compliance

I

ncidents of bribery have increased,
but so has general awareness of
anti-bribery compliance among
organisations.
According to an ENSafrica
survey, 24% of organisations have
experienced an incident of bribery
and/or corruption in the past 24
months (an increase of 4% since
2013), with 5% experiencing five or
more incidents within the last 24
months.
Just over 90% of organisations
surveyed have a policy prohibiting
bribes, 52% have an established
anti-bribery compliance programme
and 43% have conducted a detailed
anti-bribery risk assessment of their
bribery risks.
A total of 88 organisations across
Africa, including in Mauritius,
participated in the survey. Angola,
the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria,
South Africa and Uganda were
highlighted as prime hotspots for
corruption.
The survey was designed to gauge
the perceptions of people regarding
an organisation’s anti-corruption
compliance commitment to observing
local and global requirements, to see
how these compliance processes
compare to generally accepted anticorruption compliance best practices.
68% of those surveyed believe
third-party business partners pose the
greatest source of bribery risk to their
organisations.

10

AUGUST 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

Rate Hike A Dampener
For Housing Market

T

he hike of the repo rate by
25 basis points to 6% (base
home loan rate from 9.25% to
9.5%) is out of step with the economy
and bad news for consumers, home
owners and buyers.
A home owner with a housing
bond of R995 000 and a current
monthly repayment of R9 113 will
see their repayment increase to
R9 275 and will thus need to find
an extra R162 out of an already
embattled household budget.
Aside from the effect on existing
home owners, the interest rate hike
will have an inevitable slowing
effect on the demand for property
and sales volumes. While it will be
an affordability issue for buyers,
sellers are staying put, remodelling or
renovating as an alternative.
This is a trend that we are seeing
in many areas right now, especially
in the R2.25 million-plus end of the
market where, with the 20%-40%
transfer duty hike, sellers are finding
the high transaction costs as