One phone number linked to 15 different companies and 48 tenders worth R3.6 billion

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) CEO Wayne Duvenage said that new technologies, like Artificial Intelligence, have revolutionised their fight for transparency.

Duvenage discussed corruption in South Africa during a discussion at the 2026 Biznews Conference at the Champagne Sports Resort in the Drakensberg.

He explained that artificial intelligence (AI) can identify suspicious procurement patterns, inflated pricing, and conflicts of interest in minutes rather than months.

He cited using one of these systems and discovering a single phone number linked to 15 different companies that had secured 48 tenders worth R3.6 billion.

“The technology scrapes the procurement data across government departments across municipal websites. It analyses tenders’ specifications,” he said.

“It gathers tender notifications and identifies shortlisted companies. It traces supply history and highlights irregular patterns. It’s powerful.”

He described a recent meeting with technology experts who showed them the technology in action.

“They punched in one telephone number. They show you that it is linked to 15 companies,” Duvenage said.

“Those 15 companies have got 48 tenders to the value of R3.6 billion. That came from one telephone number.”

When you look at the addresses and the registered companies, you realise that the spiderweb had just started and it was growing.”

He said that when this technology is placed in the hands of people who need it, they will be able to have a big impact on fighting corruption.

One of the biggest benefits will be to stop corruption before it occurs, rather than just identifying it after it has happened.

He explained that the technology has already been shown to the National Treasury, but they have not used it.

Duvenage argued that the government does not want to implement such a system, despite it being a no-brainer for fighting corruption.

He added that while South Africa has a strong anti-corruption strategy on paper, it is overseen by a leaderless government that lacks the desire to implement it.

Because the government has shown no interest in fighting corruption, Duvenage said that civil society should do it on its own.

He said that activist organisations must independently implement these citizen-led initiatives to provide the necessary firewall between poor governance and corruption.