Corruption Watch will release the sixth edition of its half-yearly report, the Analysis of Corruption Trends (ACT), on Wednesday 14 September 2022. The ACT report highlights cases brought to the organisation by brave whistle-blowers, people who risk their lives and livelihoods to reveal the dodgy dealings of politicians, administrators, and businesspersons.
Despite grand promises from government to protect them, whistle-blowers simply do not feel safe in South Africa. Whistle-blower Martha Ngoye, group head of legal at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, shared this sentiment at a media and civil society briefing held at the end of August. Ngoye has been suspended because of her disclosure of corruption at the agency, pending the outcome of a disciplinary process.
A recently released survey of African youth, conducted in 15 countries on the continent, reveals their concerns and hopes around aspects as diverse as the political landscape, the environment, foreign relations and investment, media and connectivity, natural resources, effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, inequality, and unemployment.
Corruption Watch (CW) embarks today on a series of community engagements in the Free State province, from Tuesday 6 – Friday 9 September 2022. These events fall under Project Larona, CW’s work as part of the European Union Rallying Efforts to Accelerate Progress project, or EU REAP, which focuses on directly supporting groups at the intersection of income, wealth and social inequalities – those most left behind in Kenya and South Africa, and more broadly in Africa.
Corruption Watch has embarked on a series of community engagements in KwaZulu-Natal, from Monday 5 – Friday 9 September 2022, with the aim of improving transparency in policing and empowering communities to hold police in the province more accountable, through the ground-breaking Veza tool. The organisation will hold 9 community engagements around eThekwini during the course of the week.
In the North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday, Judge President Dunstan Mlambo dismissed an application for leave to appeal a judgment of 21 August 2019, which set aside the findings of the Seriti commission into allegations of corruption and impropriety in the 1999 arms deal. The appeal application was brought by Judge Willie Seriti, the commission’s chairperson, and former commission member Judge Hendrick Musi against Corruption Watch, the Right2Know Campaign, and five other respondents.
A compromised control environment, vacancies in critical positions, inadequate needs assessments, and lack of urgency – these are some of the factors contributing to government’s slow response to the deadly floods of April 2022 in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke named these, and more, when on 31 August she presented the first in a series of audit reports on the use of relief funds in these two provinces.
A new report, published by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, has found that there is much that Parliament can do to improve its oversight functions and capabilities. For a start, it should implement legislative changes recommended in 1999 in a previous report on oversight and accountability mechanisms, which it ignored.
The establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council must be seen as a vehicle to take the country forward in restoring public trust and building viable institutions, says Corruption Watch executive director Karam Singh. “The collective wisdom that this team represents will play an important role in advising the president on the most appropriate anti-corruption efforts to finally turn things around in the country.”