SA must unite to fight corruption: Deputy Public Protector

29 July 2015 - 20:14 By RDM News Wire
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Deputy public protector Kevin Malunga
Deputy public protector Kevin Malunga
Image: Ihsaan Haffejee

A code of ethics for the public sector and a partnership with the private sector is needed to help curb corruption‚ says Deputy Public Protector Kevin Malunga.

According to investigations done by his office‚ the country was losing too much money to fraud and corruption and that this money could have been used to build much-needed infrastructure such as schools and better public health facilities.

“To fight this problem‚” Advocate Malunga said‚ “we need to come together as government and the private sector as no one can win this fight alone.”

He was addressing the annual South African Insurance Conference held at Sun City‚ near Rustenburg‚ this week. According to a statement by his office‚ he told the over 1200 delegates from an estimated 24 countries that there was an “urgent need to develop a transversal code of conduct to help curb ethical shortfalls in how those in the public sector conducted themselves”.

He also urged the private sector to support and strengthen measures that promoted ethical governance because maladies that defined bad governance including corruption were a bilateral affair between the state and the private sector.

Malunga warned that if public resources and the constitutional value system of the constitution were not respected‚ governance in the country would decline and other key sectors such as the economy would also decline.

He said his office acted as a conscience of the state‚ comparing it to a Makhadzi in the Venda culture – referring to the advisory role that an older sister would perform within a traditional chiefdom.

The Public Protector and other institutions supporting constitutional democracy were South Africa’s insurance of its hard-earned democracy‚ Malunga said.

RDM News Wire.

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