Whistle-blowing app to help secure convictions

08 September 2015 - 02:14 By Nivashni Nair

Tired of blowing the whistle on corruption without any results? A new app launched by the Justice Alliance aims to change that.Expose It, a free platform which allows cellphone users to report corruption by dialling *134*1105#, aims to ensure prosecutions take place with the help of the alliance, an organisation of lawyers.In the two weeks since the app went live, 10 cases have been reported. The alliance's chief executive, John Smyth, said: "As soon as we find a case where there is clearly evidence which justifies taking the case to court, we can pass it on to prosecutions."The research that we had done and what we picked up from the media led us to believe a new initiative was required because other organisations, which were concerned about corruption and were getting reports and statistics, were not going the next step, which is so vital, and this is prosecutions in court and convictions. We felt as an organisation of lawyers we could provide for that omission by getting in touch with the Hawks and Crime Intelligence and by talking face to face with the NPA."Smyth said there had been two reports of "major matters" and eight "smaller matters"."The one major one is about a school where it is alleged the principal and the school governing body chairman are milking large sums of government funds meant for the school. That looks to me as a serious matter and which [has] substantial evidence. We have only begun to investigate that."Expose It is just one of a growing number of corruption hotlines that have been set up. Many departments have set up internal hotlines while NGO Corruption Watch has established an online reporting channel, accessed via its website or mobile phone app Mxit, an SMS channel and social media channels."To date we have received just under 11000 reports from the public, most of which have been received via our website and SMS. Mxit has also been successful with the younger population," said Corruption Watch's head of stakeholder management, Ronald Menoe...

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