Our future is not for sale

The new Corruption Watch television advert doesn’t just feature people doing corrupt activities – it features Corruption Watch staff making their national screen debut doing all the things they fight against every day. The organisation has never made a television ad before, but the production adds a new facet to its mission of raising awareness Read more >

Dotting i’s, not crossing palms

Dear Corruption Watch, Red tape is often a cover-up for corruption. I own a processing and exporting business. It seems I am always applying to renew various permits or paying this or that fee for a clerk to handle this or that document. Some of the permits seem to be arbitrarily withheld, costing me thousands Read more >

Billions of taxpayers’ rands down the drain again

Our zeroes today are the government departments whose disregard of taxpayers’ money has seen billions of it going down the drain in 2013. The press has been buzzing with reports of the new auditor-general Thembekile "Kimi" Makwetu's recent presentation before Parliament’s public accounts committee Scopa. In it he revealed that wasteful expenditure by government entities totalled Read more >

The inside scoop on corruption in SA

Corruption Watch has released its second annual report. The publication, which for the first two weeks will only be accessible online at the new Corruption Watch Connected community platform, reveals that the watchdog organisation has received a total of 5 482 reports of alleged corruption in the two years since its inception. Of these, 2 262 Read more >

Teachers also frustrated by corruption

Corruption is one of the most difficult challenges facing the education system today, reports an article in today’s Daily Sun. The article is based on data gathered by Corruption Watch since it started its schools campaign in January 2013. The purpose of the campaign was to expose the types of underhanded dealings that are crippling the Read more >

Corruption fuels poor service delivery

Although the basic right to sufficient water is enshrined in South Africa’s Constitution, gaining access to that clean water has been a long struggle for millions of people. The struggle is still happening, and it’s a crucial driver of uprisings in South Africa today. A 2012 study by the South African Water Research Commission confirms Read more >

Voting for them is easy, sacking them not

Dear Corruption Watch, Rarely has there been so much agreement in South Africa that Nkandla was wrong, an egregious expenditure of public funds, and that our leaders should be held accountable. Under what circumstances could the South African president or a member of the cabinet be disqualified from continuing to hold office? Yours Seeking Justice Read more >

Excessive force not always necessary

Our zeroes this week are the police officers who assaulted and arrested a Daily Sun journalist for taking photos of officers allegedly involved in soliciting bribes. They also jailed him, and when he got his cellphone back the pictures had been deleted. The officers have denied all the allegations but we have to ask: why Read more >

A blow for media freedom?

Reports in the press over the last few days have revealed that police officers in Rustenburg arrested and assaulted a newspaper journalist for taking photographs of officers allegedly involved in corrupt activities. This is the same town where Moss Phakoe was murdered after he tried to blow the whistle on corruption he had uncovered in Read more >