IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/prbchp/978-3-032-13388-5_8.html

Regulatory Gaps and Reforms in South Africa’s Oversight: Political Financing, Terrorist Funding, and Cybercrime

In: Embracing Technological Agility in Accounting and Business – Vol. 3

Author

Listed:
  • Amira Asvat

    (University of Johannesburg)

Abstract

This paper assesses South Africa’s regulatory framework in addressing the interrelated challenges of political party financing, terrorist funding, and cybercrime, highlighting its significance in safeguarding financial integrity and national security. The objective is to examine the effectiveness of key legislation—including the Political Party Funding Act (PPFA), Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), and Cybercrimes Act in mitigating illicit financial flows. The persistence of regulatory gaps raises concerns about enforcement efficiency, particularly in light of South Africa’s greylisting in 2023, which underscored deficiencies in anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) measures. By analysing legal and policy frameworks, this study aims to identify weaknesses, propose regulatory improvements, and align national controls with global AML and CFT standards. Using a legal and policy analysis methodology, this paper explores the effectiveness of these regulations in combating financial crimes. It includes a legislative review, a comparative analysis with international AML and CFT standards, and an evaluation of enforcement capacity. Case law analysis and empirical data from regulatory bodies provide insight into enforcement challenges. Findings reveal that weak inter-agency coordination, resource constraints, and evolving cyber threats hinder enforcement. The paper recommends stricter disclosure requirements for political financing, enhanced monitoring of digital transactions, and improved regulatory collaboration. The significance and contribution of this paper lie in its comprehensive evaluation of South Africa’s regulatory framework in addressing political party financing, terrorist funding, and cybercrime. By bridging legal analysis with policy recommendations, this paper provides a valuable resource for financial regulators and scholars studying financial crime in South Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Amira Asvat, 2026. "Regulatory Gaps and Reforms in South Africa’s Oversight: Political Financing, Terrorist Funding, and Cybercrime," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: Tankiso Moloi (ed.), Embracing Technological Agility in Accounting and Business – Vol. 3, pages 107-118, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-3-032-13388-5_8
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-13388-5_8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-3-032-13388-5_8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.