Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane held her first media briefing today, talking about her first week in office and the challenges and plans for the future. She plans to cut costs by building internal capacity, secure adequate funding, and treat high-profile cases as she would any other case.
In the current narrative of how South Africa’s state-owned entities can be better run to avoid multi-million rand losses due to poor management, Prasa is one of the talking points of the nation right now. The passenger rail agency is grappling with numerous issues, including non-payment of suppliers, investigations into its operations, and the reversal of a tender worth billions.
Today Corruption Watch and the Right2Know Campaign have launched an application in the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, Pretoria. The application asks the court to review and set aside the findings of the Arms Procurement Commission, also known as the Seriti Commission.
The Gauteng provincial government hosted its first open tender seminar recently, showcasing the progress the province has made in rolling out its open tender project over the past two years.
Fifteen bright young minds from Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe came together recently to brainstorm innovative solutions to combat land corruption, as part of the ChangemakerXchange, a joint project between Transparency International and Ashoka.
Acknowledging the negative human rights impact of corruption makes it imperative for African states to provide better protection to their citizens, writes Anton du Plessis of the ISS. But an absence of enforcement creates space for corrupt officials and businesspeople to hide without fear of pursuit or prosecution. And there is little political will to change things.
The Constitutional Court has reportedly dismissed the National Prosecuting Authority’s application to appeal a High Court ruling which in essence reinstated 783 criminal charges against President Jacob Zuma. The court said that it would not be in the interests of justice to hear the matter.
Corruption Watch congratulates Advocate Busisiwe Joyce Mkhwebane on her appointment as the new public protector. Mkhwebane was officially appointed today by President Jacob Zuma. Her seven-year term takes effect on 15 October 2016.
Our colleagues at Transparency Ukraine recently compared corruption levels with happiness levels, and found that there is a definite correlation between the two. Although conducted on European countries, their findings are applicable to the South African situation.