Recent instability in the global financial markets has highlighted the need for companies to remain vigilant in detecting fraud and other forms of misconduct. Encouraging whistleblowing by persons who have knowledge of corporate misconduct or fraud is important. Legislative provisions protecting whistleblowers and the integration of whistleblower programmes within a company's corporate governance framework are two strategies that may encourage whistleblowing. Legislative provisions protecting whistleblowers were introduced into the Australian Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) in 2004. In 2007 the revised Australian Stock Exchange Principles recommended that listed corporations establish a code of conduct, and suggested that the code imbed within it reference to the way in which whistleblower disclosures are handled. While there have been various studies investigating whistleblowing programmes in the public sector, prior to this study there was virtually no empirical research into corporate sector whistleblowing in Australia. This paper examines the findings of an empirical study into the use of the whistleblowing protection provisions contained in the Australian Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the adoption of whistleblowing programmes as recommended by the Australian Stock Exchange Principles by Australia's leading 200 listed companies.

Diesel accounts for up to 46 per cent of mining operations costs. In 2001, the Customs and Excise Act was amended to allow rebates for qualifying diesel users. The rebate aims to protect the international competitiveness of the South African mining industry. One of the key requirements for the diesel rebate is to submit logbooks that are compliant; however, the mining industry is struggling to maintain accurate logbook verification. Failure to comply with logbook requirements has prevented eligible mines from benefitting from the rebate. This paper presents a stepwise methodology to support the values reported in logbooks and submitted to the South African Revenue Service (SARS). The methodology focuses on four issues of data quality: data measurement, data verification, data traceability, and data reporting. With this approach, 151 errors were identified and corrected in a case study. A compliant logbook is shown to be the first step towards improved diesel management.

Fuel prices in South Africa are variable and steadily rising. Diesel accounts for a large portion of operational expenditures in open-cast mining, placing pressure on fleet managers to address fuel theft and wastage. Raw data is often obtained in a variety of formats (handwritten or digital) in this environment. A need therefore exists to capture, interpret, and utilise raw diesel data to gain insights for decision-making. It is critical to develop a diesel management system that can monitor and track fuel usage to increase performance, lower operational and maintenance costs, and eliminate misappropriation. Mining companies could benefit from a comprehensive diesel management system that enabled them to control, report, and track usage. The ‘data-information-knowledge-wisdom’ hierarchy is used in this study to capture and utilise raw diesel data for wastage reduction, business intelligence insights, and data visualisation to assist with faster decision-making. Keywords open-cast mining; diesel management; business intelligence; DIKW; diesel management dashboard; decision making

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