A new proclamation authorises the Special Investigating Unit to probe the affairs of the Lepelle Northern Water Board in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape’s Amatola Water Board. Both entities are accused of fraud, mismanagement and corruption, going back a number of years.
Former auditor-general Terence Nombembe, the chairperson of the Gauteng Ethics Advisory Council, is a man on a mission: he not only aims to detect corruption in the provincial government, but also to stop it from happening at all – with the help of Corruption Watch, the Ethics Institute, and other representatives from civil society, academia, and government.
There is an urgent need to change the way leaders and senior management are appointed to state departments and institutions, writes Kavisha Pillay, Corruption Watch’s head of stakeholder relations and campaigns Recommendations from the Zondo Commission provide a chance to pressure those in positions of political power to end cadre deployment.
With the news that Bain & Company has been banned from doing business with the UK government. questions must now be asked as to why South Africa has not yet debarred the company that assisted in entrenching state capture and ended up costing the country millions in taxpayers’ money.
Today Corruption Watch released a second report that analyses procurement information drawn from National Treasury data captured between 2016 and 2021. The analysis was made possible by CW’s online tool, Procurement Watch, which aggregates data from the treasury and focuses on deviations and expansions, both areas which can potentially raise red flags. as well as debarment of suppliers of contracts.
In an open letter addressed today to President Cyril Ramaphosa, 22 civil society organisations raise their concerns about shrinking civil space. Such organisations play a vital role in the support of democracy and in pushing for transparency and accountability, and the 22 signatories call on Ramaphosa to hold to account officials who threaten these organisations.
In the final part of the state capture report, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo recommended that for stronger accountability, the country’s president should be directly elected by the people. Academic and political analyst Prof Steven Friedman argues that this move may not be in the interest of voters after all.
We often refer to corruption in metaphorical terms, writes Corruption Watch legal researcher Tharin Pillay. Beyond this colourful terminology, however, is there anything useful we can learn which will help us take practical steps towards tackling both grand and petty corruption?
A global asset registry would be another important step towards achieving beneficial ownership transparency, the redistribution of immense wealth, and the reduction of inequality. But as long as opacity continues to undermine transparency, the super-rich and secretive will not have to account for their (often) ill-gotten gains.