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.”
Cabinet has approved an amendment bill that will strengthen the fight against money laundering. The bill, which seeks to amend five laws, is expected to go some distance towards addressing the deficiencies identified by the Financial Action Task Force in its mutual evaluation report of South Africa’s legal framework against financial crimes and corruption.
Corruption Watch (CW) is well represented on the newly appointed National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council. Our founding director David Lewis, head of stakeholder relations and campaigns Kavisha Pillay, and board member Firoz Cachalia sit on the council, with the latter serving as chairperson – a testament to CW’s solid track record in fighting corruption through its various campaigns and initiatives.
Former Transnet executives Brian Molefe and Anoj Singh will appear before the Palm Ridge Specialised Crimes Court on Monday, joining Siyabonga Gama, Garry Pita, and Phetolo Ramosebudi. The two were arrested on charges including fraud, corruption, and money laundering relating to procurement processes at the parastatal.
A new report published in August 2022 by Open Secrets paints a gloomy picture of the Hawks and National Prosecuting Agency’s seeming inability to successfully prosecute state capture cases. Bad Cops, Bad Lawyers focuses on the so-called bottlenecks within the two organisations, laying bare the weaknesses within them, and making recommendations on how to get them back on course.