Graft costing SA dearly: Thuli

South Africa had enough money and resources to improve the lives of all its citizens but corruption and maladministration ate up its progress.

This was said by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela as she addressed an Institute of Civil Engineers congress at Emperors Palace in Boksburg, on the East Rand, yesterday.

She urged engineers to perform their duties with integrity.

"By and large, people do operate within rules but the ones that have deviated from the rules have cost us immensely," Madonsela said.

She said South Africa did not have to take a longer route to reach the "promised land".

Madonsela mentioned a multibillion rand rectification programme initiated by former human settlements minister Tokyo Sexwale to fix shoddy work done by construction companies in the building of RDP houses.

"Instead of covering more ground we are digging the same ground because of corruption plus incompetence," he said.

She further urged engineers to intensify their supervision of public infrastructure projects and refrain from taking on projects beyond their competence.

Madonsela avoided mentioning the Nkandla report in which she found President Jacob Zuma and his family to have benefited unduly from the R246-million upgrades to his private homestead.

"I am not going to talk to you about 'Secure in Comfort' because I have been asked to shut up. I will not discuss that."

Earlier, at the same congress, Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said there was no need to be alarmed that Nigeria had eclipsed South Africa to become the continent's biggest economy.

Nigeria's elevation follows the recalculation of its gross domestic product off a newly defined base.

"I don't think that we should be too concerned about it. Our per capita domestic product is still substantially higher than that of Nigeria," Manuel said.

The new calculation of Nigeria's GDP takes into account changes in production and consumption since the last time the base was updated, in 1990, and indicates that the economy grew to $453-billion (R4.82-trillion) in 2012, and not to $264-billion, as measured by the World Bank.

South Africa's economy was at $384-billion in 2012, according to the World Bank.