DEAR CORRUPTION WATCH

Bill gives officials wide powers

Dear Corruption Watch With the new Draft Licensing of Businesses Bill to leave more and more administrative discretion up to public servants, it seems to me that opportunities will multiply for them to ask for ‘contributions’ and/or businesses to offer bribes or other favours. How best can we regulate business appropriately without allowing too much Read more >

HEROES & ZEROES

Public service’s R1-billion failure

By Zaheer Cassim and Nicky Rehbock South Africa’s public service is in our bad books again following damning revelations that financial misconduct in state departments could exceed R1-billion for the 2011/2012 financial year. All this while schools go without vital learning material, desks and flushing toilets; hospitals limp along with shortages of life-saving drugs, linen Read more >

CORRUPTION NEWS

More of your stories: cops bribed with drugs

Here’s a snapshot of some of the corruption reports* we’ve received from the public recently, so you can get a feel for the kind of trends we're picking up: cops being bribed by drug dealers, Free State Agriculture Department officials embezzling funds and tenders being slipped through the back door. Cops bribed by drug dealers Read more >

DEAR CORRUPTION WATCH

Will to root out corruption still a challenge

Dear Corruption Watch, Is there no list somewhere of fraudulent and corrupt employees in government?  Disgraced public officials continue to be 're-deployed'. For instance, a chief director was dismissed for fraud but was still allowed to act as COO in the same department. The same official was then made chief director in local government. How Read more >

HEROES & ZEROES

Secrecy Bill passed by Parliament

The passing of the contentious Protection of State Information Bill – or Secrecy Bill as it has come to be referred to – is an act deserving of Corruption Watch’s (CW) zero-of-the-week status. We join other civil society organisations in expressing disappointment at this turn of events in South Africa’s democracy. With the Bill needing Read more >

CORRUPTION NEWS

Civil society prepares for battle as Secrecy Bill passed

With the Secrecy Bill needing only President Jacob Zuma’s signature now before it becomes law, civil society organisations are preparing to take their fight to the Constitutional Court, where they feel its ultimate fate should be decided. The National Assembly passed the Protection of State Information Bill, dubbed the Secrecy Bill, yesterday with 190 members Read more >

CORRUPTION NEWS

Corruption Watch in the clear

The Mail & Guardian newspaper has published a correction to its story on corruption investigations regarding unions, so clearing Corruption Watch’s name. Evidence for the story, said the ombud, was simply thin. By Corruption Watch Reporter Corruption Watch’s name has been cleared after the Mail & Guardian published a correction to its lead story in Read more >

CORRUPTION NEWS

How things work at Corruption Watch

By Nicky Rehbock Knowing how our organisation works, using real incidents reported to us by the public, helps to show how we treat all cases from the public equally – whether they involve the abuse of public resources or power in a government department, private company, NGO or union. Broadly speaking, there are two very Read more >

CORRUPTION NEWS

Councillors, residents meet after report to CW

Valencia Talane No councillor in Ivory Park would interfere with the building of new RDP houses or the allocation of houses that had already been built, ward councillor Petru Zitha emphasized at a meeting between residents and City of Johannesburg housing officials. Ivory Park, in the northeastern suburb of Midrand, is in Joburg’s Region A, Read more >