Publications
Partners
Government officials and businesspersons in the private sector may have been enjoying open season on corruption, but “the writing in now on the wall”, Corruption Watch has warned.
Releasing its 2019 annual corruption report – an analysis of corruption trends in both the public and private sector – the graft-busting organisation’s executive director David Lewis warned that corrupt individuals would be outed.
The report, titled The Writing on the Wall, was released to the public earlier on Tuesday.
Lewis also warned that corrupt people and companies now face a greater chance of being arrested and tried for graft than a few years ago.
“Those who are corrupt are coming closer to having to account for their actions than before. The risk of being arrested and jailed for corruption is somewhat higher than it was before, however slowly things have gone in prosecutions.
"This is also despite the enormous burden of proof required in order to secure a conviction in criminal prosecutions,” Lewis said in an interview with City Press.
He cited the arrest, in May and November last year, of former Ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and Bongani Bongo, chairperson of the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on home affairs, as examples that senior politicians and high-profile people will not get away with crime.
Following her arrest, Gumede was charged with corruption and tender fraud while Bongo was slapped with a count of bribery.
Lewis said there was evidence that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Hawks were receiving a lot of financial resources and support from senior politicians.
Of Bongo and Gumede, Lewis said: “Those are senior politicians and it should send a message that you will not get away with corruption just because you are senior. The writing on the wall might be faint, but it is definitely there.”
The findings
In 2019, the organisation received an average of 10 reports a day, demonstrating the public’s commitment to continue to expose those corrupt individuals who have sought to further their own private interests at the expense of ordinary people, Lewis said in a media statement.
“In terms of the hotspots of corruption, the highest number of reports were received in the policing sector (12%), followed by schools at 10%, mining, traffic and licensing at 9%, and healthcare at 4%.
"These allegations of corruption have primarily featured bribery (17%), procurement corruption (16%) and mismanagement of funds (15%), all of which have impacted the delivery of services and denied people of their basic socio-economic rights.
“The data shows that 29% of corruption reports involve national government, a 2% increase from 2018, while local government counts for 26%, and provincial government 20%.
Read: SA’s corruption still very serious, but gains being made
"A fifth of the reports, 19%, point a finger at the private sector. As in previous years, most reports were received from Gauteng (47%), followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 10%, and Limpopo at 9%, the latter featuring in the top three provinces for the second year in a row,” said the statement.
In 2019 Corruption Watch, Lewis said, shifted focus and started paying more attention in the fight against corruption in the provision of policing services, healthcare, and in addressing marginalised mining and other disadvantaged communities.
“Key aspects of this work include identifying gaps in the legal and policy framework, calling for greater transparency in the appointment of public sector leaders, and in holding key private sector firms and professions to account for their complicity in corruption.”
Corruption, bribery, fraud dereliction of duty and the abuse of power by the police were raised by the public during the course of last year, the report showed.
Other gains
Lewis said Corruption Watch was happy to have succeeded, in August last year, in persuading the courts to set aside the findings of the Seriti Commission.
In 2016 the Seriti Commission – which had been appointed by former president Jacob Zuma to investigate corruption in the acquisition of arms by the government in 1999 – found that there was no evidence of corruption against politicians and civil servants.
Last month Corruption Watch scored another victory when the Constitutional Court rejected an application by Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeals judgment that the company repay the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) some R316 million.
Corruption Watch had brought the application against CPS in 2015 after it was revealed that the company had overcharged Sassa for the registration and payment of grant beneficiaries.
The organisation, Lewis said, was also worried about developments in the mining and health sectors.
On mining, Lewis said: “Embattled by multiple challenges, mining-affected communities also grapple with devastating consequences of widespread corruption in the sector.
"The organisation continues to play a pivotal role in advocating for greater transparency in the management of mining royalties owed to the impoverished communities and for a criminal investigation of the many millions of rands that have been looted from accounts managed on their behalf by provincial authorities.”
On Corruption Watch’s concerns about the health sector, he said: “The public healthcare system continues to crumble in the face of corruption and other factors that have contributed to its deterioration over the years.
"The 2019 annual corruption report has highlighted irregular expenditure, financial misconduct, theft, moonlighting, and many other types of corruption as areas of concern.
"As a result, the organisation is taking these concerns forward and is an active participant in the Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum, officially launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year, in response to the dire state of the healthcare system in the country.”
 |
| ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
