Today, 20 June, is World Refugee Day. On Saturday 18 June the People’s Coalition Against Xenophobia launches its pledge campaign, SIBANTU BANYE (We are one people). The campaign seeks to get as many people in South Africa to sign a pledge of commitment to working actively for such an inclusive and tolerant society in their own communities.
South Africa holds local government elections in just under two months. Our new three-part series looks at political party funding and the implications of disclosure or non-disclosure of private party funding.
South Africa recently joined the likes of Burkina Faso, Kenya and Ghana in developing and launching an open data portal that makes published government data accessible for free to the public. But how open is the country’s official data, especially seen in a global context?
Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania are waging a war on poaching, but one of the greatest challenges to winning it is corruption among the people fighting it. Poachers have enlisted the help of police, judges and customs officials, who are bribed so that the lucrative trade keeps moving.
Corruption Watch has been in touch with the parliamentary ad hoc committee to oversee the public protector appointment. We wrote to the committee expressing our support, and making a few requests, and were treated cordially in return.
One of the criteria for the post of public protector is a 10-year stint as an MP. But staff at the Office of the Public Protector – who, one might say, know best of all – had their way, a high court judge would be their new boss. This was highlighted in the recent survey we conducted with them.
The advert for the post of public protector has been published. Nominations and applications are welcomed, says the parliamentary ad hoc committee overseeing the process, but there are just three weeks in which to submit them.
For the first time in the history of the province, a Free State municipality has achieved a clean audit, said auditor-general Kimi Makwetu, presenting the 2014/2015 local government audit outcomes yesterday. This contributed to the encouraging improvement in audit results over the past five years.
The parliamentary ad hoc committee to choose a new public protector has adopted a programme which has a strong focus on public participation, and has made important dates known.