Corruption Watch, Legal Resources Centre, Support Centre for Land Change, and Surplus People Project appear before the Portfolio Committee on Land Reform and Rural Development this week to highlight the failure of farm worker equity schemes which have, for the most part, benefited only farm owners. The civil society partners will call on Parliament to take decisive action to address this long-standing injustice.
The latest parliamentary oversight report, published recently by Parlimeter and OUTA, reveals progress, but also worrying inconsistencies. “Oversight remains reactive rather than preventive, corruption is exposed but seldom punished, and public trust continues to waver as many South Africans still perceive Parliament as a space of performance rather than reform.” The report makes several recommendations with a view to addressing these gaps.
Over 140 organisations and individuals across the country have come together to condemn the violent incidents that have destroyed valuable property and wiped out investment at Fort Hare University, and to reclaim and safeguard this historic institution. The organisations call for democratic values to be restored and upheld.
Proceedings at the parallel probes into allegations of criminality in the justice system took a turn for the startling in week 5 – from the explosive testimony of former police minister Bheki Cele before the parliamentary ad hoc committee looking into the allegations brought to light by KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi in July, to the accounts of three in-camera witnesses before the Madlanga commission, also probing the same.
South Africa, having made “significant progress in improving its AML/CFT regime”, has been removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list. The country was placed on the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring in 2023, and in the months since has worked closely with the FATF to tighten up and rectify the deficiencies identified in its anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing framework.
The Special Investigating Unit invites stakeholders to contribute their inputs on the Draft National Corruption Risk and Prevention Framework, which supports the National Anti-Corruption Strategy. The deadline is Friday, 7 November 2025 – an extension from the previous deadline of 24 October. The framework is founded on a risk-based approach to corruption, with the emphasis on prevention.
As South Africa begins to look ahead to local government elections in 2026, a recent symposium on political party funding, hosted by the Independent Electoral Commission, brought together key stakeholders to assess progress in the four years since the promulgation of what is now known as the Political Funding Act. The event also aimed to explore how to strengthen the country’s democratic framework in this regard.
In August this year Corruption Watch successfully challenged the validity of the 2022 appointment of five commissioners to the Commission for Gender Equality. The Constitutional Court declared those appointments to be invalid and instructed Parliament to rerun the process. The Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities is now preparing to run, from 1 December to 23 January, a series of adverts calling for new nominations.
The commission dealt this week with the challenge by News24 and Daily Maverick, brought in the interests of transparency, to the in camera ruling that was to apply. The parties reached a compromise on the witness appearing at the beginning of the week – agreeing to a system that would see the witness testify remotely and an intermediary relay their responses – and accepted the need for the testimony in the later part of the week to be held behind closed doors.