Posts

Procurement Watch – a Corruption Watch project

Public procurement—the process by which the government contracts for the provision of goods, services, and infrastructure— presents one of the biggest corruption risks in modern society. Monitoring public procurement, and advocating for reform of South Africa’s public procurement system, is thus central to our work at Corruption Watch. Procurement integrity is also recognised as one Read more >

ConCourt confirms exec ethics code invalidity on funding disclosures

The Executive Ethics Code is unconstitutional to the extent that it does not require members of the executive to disclose donations made to campaigns for elections to positions within political parties. This was confirmed in the Constitutional Court on 20 September 2022. Investigative journalism organisation AmaBhungane brought the application to the ConCourt, asking it to Read more >

Civil society’s fight for transparency is vital for democracy

Democracy: a system of government in which the people of a country can vote to elect their representatives;fair and equal treatment of everyone in an organisation, etc., and their right to take part in making decisions. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries Democracy, by its very definition, can only work if all people are able to participate in Read more >

Media advisory: Corruption Watch to engage with communities in KZN

Corruption Watch (CW) has embarked on a series of community engagements in KwaZulu-Natal, from Monday 5 – Friday 9 September 2022, with the aim of improving transparency in policing and empowering communities to hold police in the province more accountable, through the ground-breaking Veza tool. Since its inception in February 2021, the Veza tool – Read more >

High Court dismisses Seriti application for leave to appeal, with costs

Image: Flickr/GovernmentZA The North Gauteng High Court on 31 August 2022 dismissed an application for leave to appeal its judgment and order of 21 August 2019, which set aside the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of fraud, corruption, impropriety or irregularity in the Strategic Defence Procurement package – known as the arms Read more >

We need to fix appointments to key institutions – now

By Kavisha PillayFirst published on News24 South Africa’s public service and institutions are in disarray. If we are to avoid any further breakdown of our institutions, we need to focus on who is appointed and scrutinise the appointment processes.  Transparent, merit-based and public participatory appointment proceedings are the minimum requirements to ensure the appointment of Read more >

New CW report on trends in procurement deviations, expansions, and debarment

Image: UN Environment Programme In October 2021 Corruption Watch (CW), working with procurement law expert Prof Geo Quinot of Stellenbosch University, released its first report that analyses procurement information drawn from National Treasury (NT) data captured between 2016 and 2020. The analysis was made possible by CW’s online tool, Procurement Watch (PW), which was launched at the Read more >

A global asset registry will boost equality and fight lawless wealth

Anonymous private wealth. Luxurious homes, state-of-the-art yachts and aircraft, priceless jewellery, valuable pieces of art, and more. Symbols of an ever-increasing global problem of financial inequality, and a proven driver also of corruption and tax abuse. Such wealth in the hands of a mere fraction of the global population is unsustainable – and as long Read more >