Public service & administration minister Ayanda Dlodlo says the fight against corruption is not the exclusive preserve of the government and called on citizens and civil society to fight the scourge posing a great threat to SA’s dream of becoming an ethical and developmental state.
The National Development Plan, a blueprint to address the country's socioeconomic challenges by 2030, states the need for the government to build a “state that is capable of playing a developmental and transformative role” in society.
Speaking during a webinar to mark International Anti-Corruption Day on Thursday, Dlodlo said the fight against corruption is the “most defining struggle of our time” and the battle is far from over.
Corruption undermines “democracy, rule of law, distorts markets” and leads to organised crime and terrorism to flourish, the minister said.She called on those in leadership positions to “act ethically at all times”.
The state-capture commission, chaired by acting chief justice Raymond Zondo, has shed light on how deeply corruption was entrenched during former president Jacob Zuma’s term as president, with state coffers drained of an estimated R500bn as a result.
South Africans believe that graft has intensified under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration, according to the 2021 Afrobarometer survey.
Ramaphosa, who assumed the presidency in February 2018, promised “a new dawn” after the Zuma era, but new revelations of fraud and corruption, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, have dogged his tenure. Ramaphosa has admitted as much, declaring in August 2020 that the ANC “was accused number one” in corruption.
In a separate webinar, Glynnis Breytenbach, a DA MP and former prosecutor for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), said the resignation of Hermione Cronje the head of the NPA’s Investigating Directorate (ID) was “concerning”.
Ramaphosa appointed Cronje in May 2019 to expedite investigation and prosecution of those involved in state capture. However, there has been growing disillusionment over the slow progress made by national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi in bringing cases to court.
“Great expectations were created with the creation of the ID. There is no real reason for such a long delay [in prosecutions],” said Breytenbach.
Batohi should conduct regular briefings to address the “delays that everybody is talking about”, former Constitutional Court judge Richard Goldstone said in the webinar.
He said the public had the right to know why Cronje had resigned and “it is unacceptable” that Batohi had not given the justice portfolio committee reasons for Cronje’s resignation.
Accountability Now director Paul Hoffman said the ongoing incidence of serious corruption with impunity in SA is a cause for concern.
“Tenderpreneurism has been supplemented by Covidpreneurism in an ongoing looting spree that threatens the very existence of the state,” he said. “The ANC has, as has been pointed out before, devolved into a criminal enterprise.
“None of those fingered during evidence at the state capture commission, during the Nugent inquiry and by those investigating the affairs of the Public Investment Corporation, currently face any consequences in any criminal court,” said Hoffman.
“Eventually the state can take no more and it fails. Once corruption becomes fashionable in high places, it tends to snowball into kleptocracy and state capture until there is nothing left to steal.”
The Zondo commission is scheduled to submit its final report to Ramaphosa on January 1, minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele said on Thursday.
“Cabinet anticipates that in addition to exposing the perpetrators of corruption, this report will also provide us with proposals to strengthen our systems to prevent corruption,” he said.
Gungubele said that up to March 31, 56 cases instituted by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), involving contracts totalling R62bn, were pending in the high court and 64 cases in the amount of R6.99bn were before the special tribunal that was established to fast-track cases.
“The amounts or values are the contractual amounts which were irregularly and unlawfully awarded by the state institutions and which form the subject of the litigation by the SIU,” he said.
“In the 2021/2022 financial year the SIU has already frozen pension benefits of former civil servants, bank accounts and assets of individuals and business amounting to more than R43bn,” the minister said.
He said Ramaphosa had signed nine SIU proclamations in the financial year under review. SIU investigations only take place once a proclamation is issued by the president.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said corruption and maladministration in the affairs of government departments, municipalities and state-owned entities “are depriving the public of valuable resources”.
“Between April 2020 and March 2021, the SIU recovered financial losses suffered by the state to the value of R1.8bn, prevented losses of R2.7bn, and set aside administrative decisions and contracts amounting to R7.1bn. The money could have been lost to corruption had no-one bothered to blow the whistle,” Kganyago said.
With Linda Ensor
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