Citizens can help fight graft – Senzo Mchunu

Public Service and Administration Minister Senzo Mchunu believes citizens need to support coordination between government, business and civil society efforts to reduce corruption and improve accountability and ethical practice.

There was a continued fight against corruption as criminals were always plotting new ways of carrying out their evil deeds.

Speaking at the opening of International Anti-Corruption Day at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in Pretoria yesterday, Mchunu said government would be decisive in dealing with corruption.

He encouraged those who fight corruption to be as confident as those who were committing crime.

The day’s theme was “United against corruption: building a culture of accountability for sustainable development.”

“We cannot allow a minority of criminals to dictate the agenda of multitudes of good-willed South Africans,” Mchunu said. “Sometimes, whistleblowers are victimised, with some losing their jobs, business contracts and, in certain instances, their lives. Already we are beginning to see some arrests and prosecutions, including that of people holding senior positions in government.”

He said government was determined to fight corruption with all available resources and might.

“Corruption affects all sectors of society, the reality of the matter is that fighting corruption is one of the most daunting tasks, as it manifests itself in different forms,” he said.

While government continues to “ensure determination” in fighting corruption, the 2018 Corruption Watch report described trending issues reported by members of the public over the years as abuse of power, bribery, employment corruption and procurement corruption.

A recent report published by Melusi Ncala, a Corruption Watch researcher, revealed that between 2012 and 2018, the organisation received more than 700 reports regarding land issues, housing and mining issues, with KwaZulu-Natal having the greatest number of cases.

Ncala said one of the key contributing factors to corruption was the lack of anticorruption oversight by independent bodies, along with a lack of consequences for abuse of power in the sector.

“The most prevalent types of corruption include the embezzlement of funds and theft of resources (25%), followed by irregularities in the awarding of RDP houses (19.5%), bribery (11.2%) and irregularities in procurement (9.1%).”

An area of great concern was “sextortion”, a form of corruption affecting women across the continent, which involved public officials soliciting sexual favours from women around registering of properties and awarding of houses, Ncala said.

Corruption Watch also received 1,440 reports of corruption against the police between 2012 and 2018, with instances of bribery, abuse of power, and failure to act leading the complaints.

In the past week, eight suspects, including five police officials have been arrested for alleged corruption by the Hawks’ Pietermaritzburg Serious Organised Crime and Crime Intelligence unit.

Former Eastern Cape department of education employee Zukiswa Wana appeared in the East London Magistrate’s Court on charges of corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering related to corrupt activities involving the department of education school nutrition procurement programme.

The matter was postponed to January 20, for a Regional Court date, while all the accused were granted R10,000 bail.

According to Financial Times, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that the country lost between R1 trillion and R1.5 trillion in tax revenues and lost investments in addition to the direct cost of corruption.

– anastasim@citizen.co.za

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