South Africa is one of a number of countries where civil society is not fully able to enjoy its freedoms and rights. The 2017 CIVICUS State of Civil Society report shows that across the globe, civil society space is under unprecedented levels of attack. However, citizens and organisations are not standing idly by while their rights are threatened, and “the democracy of the street is alive and well”.
Corruption Watch will be amplifying its anti-corruption message in Limpopo and expanding its footprint to communities where its presence has previously been limited. The organisation is embarking on an awareness-raising roadshow in three provinces, and will later visit Northern Cape and Eastern Cape.
Corruption Watch highlights an investigative feature by Al Jazeera on the United Nations’ accountability structures with regard to its peacekeeping unit.
On the eve of the commemoration of the Marikana massacre, Corruption Watch and the Institute for Security Studies have launched a survey encouraging the public to voice their opinions about the skills and attributes they would like to see in the new national police commissioner and the head of the Hawks. This public opinion will be fed into the selection process for these two appointments still to be made by the president and minister of police respectively, as part of the organisations’ joint awareness campaign focusing on police leadership.
Take our police survey and tell us what values and attributes you would like to see in your police chiefs.
In its oral submission to Parliament, the organisation focuses on three key topics, namely the nature and scope of disclosures and financial reporting in respect of the Represented Political Parties Fund, foreign and private funding, and the role of oversight bodies.
Young people around the globe have the potential and power to help shape a fairer and more just world. Many young people are fighting corruption and making a big difference, but for those who are interested in tackling corruption and just don’t know where to start, here are 15 great ideas from Transparency International’s youth anti-corruption tool kit.
Corruption in SADC is a deliberate executive machination, a new report by the Open Society Initiative shows. In South Africa, the ongoing maladministration within state owned entities such as Eskom, Transnet, Prasa and SAA is indicative of corruption and patronage in the public sector. These remain the weakest link when it comes to policy implementation in the country, particularly given that they largely remain host to ‘networks of patronage’.
Big data – large, complex sets of data that, when analysed, may produce interesting and unexpected results – has the potential to expose corruption and detect suspicious patterns and transactions, writes Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett. We saw it in the Panama Papers last year and more recently, in the Gupta Leaks which continues to yield revelations almost daily. There is a role for big data to play in Africa, but the required statistical skills and software are not in ready supply on the continent and many other parts of the developing world.