The recent Africa Fraud Barometer 2011 released by KPMG and the Ernst & Young Africa Attractiveness survey 2012 all cast a negative outlook for the country, especially in a period where most of the African countries have bucked the downtrend, raising the spectre that it will become increasingly more difficult to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).<br />
However, it was not all gloom and doom as the country ranked higher than some BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in the “irregular payments and bribes” category — a subcomponent of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. ..............<br />
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According to the KPMG report, the value of fraud cases in Zimbabwe in the six months to December 2011 soared to $1,2 billion, which is 32 percent of the overall value of fraud cases in Africa in the review period at $3,7 billion.<br />
As a result, Zimbabwe was ranked second to Nigeria, which had fraud cases of over $1,6 billion.<br />
<b>South Africa had the highest number of reported fraud cases in the period at 35 percent from 37 percent that was recorded in the period of January to June in 2011.</b><br />
Nigeria was second, with the number of cases recorded at 22 percent from 25 percent in the first half.<br />
On the overall, 520 fraud cases worth $7,2 billion were recorded in the second half of last year.