CW annual report: average 11 whistle-blower reports a day in 2020

The Corruption Watch (CW) 2020 annual report, titled From Crisis to Action, reflects the extent to which all organisations and individuals in South Africa witnessed and experienced the massive impact of the global coronavirus pandemic.  During this period the public was increasingly outraged by the rampant corruption that emerged in relation to procurement and distribution Read more >

Questions linger over Jova as health department stays mum

By Karam Singh and Kirsten PearsonFirst published on Business Live Corruption Watch is trying to keep a close eye on Covid-19 vaccine procurement and rollout. Given the experiences with personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement and the impact the vaccine rollout has on each resident’s lives, we believe it is critical to monitor. But our monitoring Read more >

SA languishes in corruption index despite recent cleanup moves

By David Lewis and Janine ErasmusFirst published on Business Live Despite a number of positive developments during 2020 on the anti-corruption front, SA’s score on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index remains static. There are several possible reasons for this, not least of which is the governing ANC’s apparent unwillingness or inability to tackle corruption in Read more >

Treasury opens up on Covid vaccine procurement oversight

By Janine ErasmusFirst published on Maverick Citizen With the upcoming deployment of South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccine programme, Corruption Watch felt strongly enough about the possibility of corruption marring the process to write to National Treasury asking for clarification on aspects of the procurement process, given that emergency procurement thus far has been riddled with corruption. Read more >

Responding to rampant corruption: get your own house in order

by Cynthia SchoemanFirst published on Ethics Monitor We are all outraged by ongoing reports of public sector corruption. And, given how long corruption has been a problem, many are questioning whether the latest government committee, the committee of ministers appointed by the president to investigate Covid corruption, will achieve meaningful results. As a positive response, Read more >

Thinking of blowing the whistle? Read this first

By Kwazi Dlamini British philosopher John Stuart Mill once said, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” In South Africa in the recent past, corruption and dishonest individuals have thrived under the unobservant eye of their peers, while those who are watchful of Read more >

SA police: Neither serving nor protecting GBV victims

By Sabeehah MotalaFirst published on News24 Before Parliament are three very important bills, amending various laws, all in the name of dealing with gender-based violence (GBV). So what are we, as an anti-corruption organisation, doing sticking our nose into GBV matters? Firstly, theoretical background is very important. A feminist conception of corruption leverages on the Read more >

How the Fishrot scandal robbed Namibia of millions

Image: WikiLeaks In part one of our Fishrot Files mini-series we read about the experiences of whistle-blower Jóhannes Stefánsson, the former MD of the Namibian branch of Icelandic fishing company Samherji. After Stefánsson’s 2016 departure from the company, he handed over a cache of 30 000 revealing documents to Al Jazeera and WikiLeaks. The latter Read more >

Fishrot whistle-blower did it despite the risks

In 2014 the stench of corruption began to rise from the operations of Icelandic fishing company Samherji in Namibia, and its former MD Jóhannes Stefánsson noticed. Two years later, he left his job to expose an extensive cash-for-quota scandal through a trove of 30 000 documents and e-mail correspondence handed over to WikiLeaks, who made Read more >