Posts

Hard times and discrimination for whistleblowers

By Valencia Talane People who blow the whistle on corruption should not expect a pat on the back, because it may never come. Rather, they should act from the heart, knowing that their careers, and even their lives, may veer off in an unanticipated direction. This is the advice of Cecilia Sililo-Tshishonga, a wife and Read more >

Whistleblowers: ordinary people turned heroes

Today, 9 December, is International Anti-Corruption Day. The day aims to raise public awareness of corruption and what people can do to fight it. This year’s theme is Zero Corruption – 100% Development, meaning that corruption is a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, because it diverts funds away from desperately needed facilities and Read more >

CPI 2013 – South Africa in the African context

Transparency International (TI) has launched its annual corruption perceptions index, and South Africa has not improved noticeably on its score of 43 and ranking of 69 for 2012. Last year the country dropped two places on the sub-Saharan Africa rankings, from seven to nine, and this year it drops another place to 10. The index Read more >

Survey: Corruption in schools on the rise

Since Corruption Watch launched its schools campaign,  reports of irregularities in school management have been coming in thick and fast. Since January 2012, the civil society organisation has received over 300 reports of corruption in schools via its website, SMS hotline, and telephone. Corruption Watch has made schools monitoring a focus in 2013. Now, new Read more >

Thin blue line broken

By Kavisha Pillay The Global Corruption Barometer, released by Transparency International (TI) in July, revealed that South Africans viewed the police service as the most corrupt institution in the country. A staggering 83 percent of respondents had this perception of the police, and of the 74 percent of respondents who came into contact with a police official Read more >

Corruption Watch exposé leads to suspensions

By Zaheer Cassim Three officials at Dr JS Moroka municipality near Witbank in Mpumalanga have been suspended after a Corruption Watch investigation exposed some very dodgy spending by procurement clerks employed by the municipality. Corruption Watch was alerted to the case when the accounting officer at a private company, who had been involved in supplying Read more >

These are your stories: schools in trouble!

Here’s a snapshot of some of the reports* on schools we’ve received from the public recently, so you can get a feel for the kind of trends we’re picking up: an “untouchable” principal on Gauteng’s East Rand, a teacher with a dodgy past at a school near Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal who seems to be pilfering Read more >

Problems in North West

Municipalities in North West were hailed by the province’s leadership towards the end of 2012 for meeting auditor-general (AG) Terence Nombembe’s deadline for submitting their financial statements for that year – but what was not revealed at the time was that the achievement came with a R29-million bill for taxpayers. On Wednesday, Mail & Guardian Read more >

Corruption in driving schools: take a stand

Mummy Mangoale approached Boiteko Driving Institute in Pretoria in August 2011, asking about the cost of driving lessons. She met Calvin Theledi, who told her that it would cost her R4 500 to get a Code 8 driving licence. Eager to get started with her lessons, Mangoale arranged to pay the fee in two separate instalments Read more >