KING V CODE ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FOR SOUTH AFRICA (Draft)
The King V Code on Corporate Governance for South Africa establishes a comprehensive framework for ethical and effective leadership, emphasising integrated thinking and sustainable value creation within economic, social, and environmental contexts. It defines corporate governance as the pursuit of four main outcomes—ethical culture, performance, conformance, and legitimacy—through the actions of the governing body. Critical principles include ethical leadership, balanced governing body composition, clear delegation, and robust risk and compliance management. The Code advocates stakeholder inclusivity and responsible corporate citizenship grounded in Ubuntu philosophy, guiding organisations to create value for both themselves and broader society. Governance practices are structured around steering the organisation, approving policies, overseeing management, and ensuring accountability. The Code mandates an outcomes-based, “apply and explain” disclosure approach, allowing for proportional adaptation based on an organisation’s size and complexity. It addresses essential domains: ethics, strategy, reporting, risk, compliance, stakeholder management, information governance (including emerging technologies like AI), assurance, and remuneration. Organisations are encouraged to implement leading practices, foster diversity and competence, and ensure independent oversight of committees, with transparency and continuous evaluation central to its application.
THE STATE OF CYBER SECURITY 2025 – Top threats, emerging trends, and CISO recommendations
The 2025 State of Cyber Security report highlights key threats, including: The AI tactics that swayed a third of global elections through disinformation.
A 58% surge in infostealer attacks, focusing on corporate access.
Ransomware attacks shift from encryption to data exfiltration extortion, with Healthcare now the second most targeted.
Hybrid networks enabling lateral movement between on-premise and cloud.
Hardware and Software supply chains saw the highest attack surge attacks.
IRMSA Risk Report 2025/26
South Africans are experiencing new forms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. As our own reality changed with the formation of the GNU, the world also changed significantly after the global super-election cycle of 2024. While we are already feeling the impact, these changes will continue to reverberate locally and across the globe in the coming years (not only in a political sense) – affecting the
resilience and sustainability of our
country, our planet, and everyone on it.
IRMSA Risk Report – South Africa Risks 2024/25
‘Managing the risks that attend to the pursuit of sustainable development.’
South Africans today may feel that they are living inside Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. In the One City, a smaller portion of society feels empowered and excited about the unfolding future, gathering pace on the wings of the ongoing technological revolution and new political possibilities. The unprecedented results of the 2024 elections require citizens, political parties, the State, and corporates to reinvent a political future that will serve the interests of our entire nation. Yet in Another City, a larger portion of our nation remains excluded from the benefits of democracy and a more equalitarian world. Being caught in this Tale of Two Cities is not unique or confined to South Africa. The explosion of communication technologies has brought us into each other’s living rooms locally and globally, so to speak. This has enabled the world to both share and tackle its interrelated challenges – polycrises and permacrises. Our collective effort to identify and resolve these challenges is guided by the agenda set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
IRMSA Risk Report – SOUTH AFRICA Risks 2023/24
South Africa, like many countries, faces a multitude of risks in the years ahead. These risks range from economic and political instability to social and environmental challenges. In our case however, the failure over many years to address these risks in manageable bits, so to speak, has resulted in the country now facing a polycrisis (i.e. the simultaneous realisation of individual risks), with the potential consequence of becoming a Failed State (some may believe that South Africa is already a Failed State) or a Mafia State. Taking this reality into account as the country strives towards the realisation of its Vision 2030 goals, a higher level of urgency is needed to navigate these threats and opportunities in order to build a more prosperous, sustainable and inclusive future or in the worst case, to prevent a Failed State or Mafia State from materialising.
IRMSA Risk Report – South Africa Risks 2022
Currently we are only just in the ‘Fake it until we make it, or not?’ scenario, which is where we have been for the past two years. What
is encouraging is that recently we have been doing some things right, although not nearly enough. We now have to urgently overcome
the current inertia to avoid a slip into the worst-case scenario of a ‘Perpetual hangover’. The challenge is to avoid regressing on any of our of our gains so far. While we are barely in the ‘Fake it until we make it, or not?’ scenario, we now need to focus on sustained implementation of what we have started. We need to leverage the progress we have made and translate our efforts into tangible outcomes. The threat and opportunity landscape is challenging, but we believe we are on the right course. We now need to demonstrate our staying power as a country and organisations to succeed. We need to leverage the progress we have made and
translate our efforts into tangible outcomes.