SA needs a better performing system and credible people in government for it to root out corruption.
This is according to political analyst Ralph Mathekga, who was reacting to Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released on Tuesday, the same day the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) released its report into billions of rand in Covid-19 government corruption.
The SIU investigated 5,467 contracts awarded to 3,066 service providers worth R14.3bn. Of these, 4,549 contracts have been finalised and 62% have been found to be irregular.
Investigations found “45 matters constituting a combined value of R2.1bn [that] have been enrolled with the special tribunal on corruption, fraud and illicit money flows”, acting presidency spokesperson Tyrone Seale said.
The SIU referred more than 600 cases for prosecution, administrative action or disciplinary action.
On Tuesday, Corruption Watch decried SA’s lack of improvement on the Corruption Index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people.
It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, with zero being highly corrupt and 100 very clean.
According to the study, SA with many other countries has stagnated in its efforts to curb corruption over the past 10 years.
In 2012 the country scored 43, ranking 69 out of 176 countries assessed.
“Fast forward to 2021 and the country sits at a dismal 44, the same as last year, dropping one place in rank to 70 out of the now 180 countries,” the report reads.
The highest score SA received in the past decade was 45, while the lowest was 42, on the 2013 index.
This year the top countries are Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, each with a score of 88. Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany complete the top 10.
“You can’t fight corruption until you have capacity. Capacity means getting people with credibility who will improve the perceptions others have about government,” Mathekga said.
You can’t fight corruption until you have capacity. Capacity means getting people with credibility who will improve the perceptions others have about government.
— Political analyst Ralph Mathekga
Fighting corruption, he said, would improve if the country had a better performing public service.
Corruption, the CPI noted, undermines the ability of governments to guarantee the human rights of their citizens.
It also affects the delivery of public services, the dispensation of justice and the provision of safety for everyone.
“In particular, grand corruption committed by high-level officials usually combines the large-scale, transnational theft of public funds with gross human rights violations,” the reports reads.
“It is extremely disheartening to find ourselves, year after year, in the same position on the CPI, with marginal shifts up or down. The poor perceptions of how South Africa is faring in its efforts to truly tackle and dismantle the systems that enable corruption are perhaps to be expected, when one considers the staggering levels of corruption we have witnessed,” said Karam Singh, executive director at Corruption Watch.
“As a civil society organisation working relentlessly to expose the gaps that enable corruption and find solutions for creating a society free from this scourge, we can only hope that recent developments to bring corruption to the fore in the country will result in swift and effective prosecutions, and a restoration of public confidence in the political will to end impunity and lack of accountability,” said Singh.
The CPI also shows that 86% of countries have made little to no progress in the past 10 years, a trend it highlighted as concerning.
It is extremely disheartening to find ourselves, year after year, in the same position on the CPI, with marginal shifts up or down.
— Karam Singh, executive director, Corruption Watch
SA sits alongside Jamaica and Tunisia on the index, and comes in at number eight on the regional table of sub-Saharan African countries.
The average score for SSA countries is 33, one point higher than last year, demonstrating again that there have been no significant changes in addressing high levels of corruption in the region.
“Once again Somalia (13) and South Sudan (11) fall at the bottom of both the SSA and the global index, which also includes Syria, at 13.
“While countries like the Seychelles may have gained on the SSA table, these positive changes are eclipsed by the region’s poor performance overall, with 44 of the 49 countries still scoring below 50,” says the report.
In its recommendations, the CPI proposes efforts be made to restore and strengthen institutional checks on power.
“It is time to establish public oversight bodies such as a dedicated anti-corruption agency and a supreme audit institution, which must be independent, well-resourced and empowered to detect and sanction wrongdoing, as advocated through the NACS [National Anti-Corruption Strategy] and many other whistle-blower forums, and as recommended by the recently released Zondo report,” said the CPI.
It calls on parliament and the courts to be vigilant in preventing executive overreach.
Other recommendations focus on the need to be watchful regarding human rights abuses in relation to restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and assembly, as well as matters of transnational corruption. — additional reporting by Amanda Khoza
3,066 – number of service providers being investigated;
5,467 – contracts awarded;
R14.3bn – total value of PPE contracts awarded which are under investigation;
2,590 – service providers in finalised investigations;
4,503 – contracts whose investigations have been finalised;
476 – service providers in ongoing pending investigations;
964 – number of contracts in ongoing pending investigations;
1,217 – service providers where the SIU identified irregularities;
1,313 – service providers where no irregularities were identified.
2,803 – irregular contracts where irregularities were identified;
R7.8bn – value of contracts where irregularities were identified. – compiled by Isaac Mahlangu, Sowetan
— SIU report: Covid-19 corruption in numbers
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