From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#4 (December 1999), page 10

Combating South Africa's 'blight'

As South Africa strives to build democracy and social justice from the wreckage of apartheid, corruption remains "a blight on our society," Mr. Stan Sangweni, Chairperson of the Public Service Commission, told the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Durban. Nearly a dozen different police, investigative, judicial, monitoring and auditing agencies are involved in combating this blight, with the Commission assigned the task of coordinating their work.
Opinion surveys in recent years have shown widespread public concern over corruption in South Africa, with many believing it actually has been growing worse, a view shared by former Minister of Justice Dullah Omar. In 1997 the international accounting agency Deloitte and Touche estimated total losses from public sector fraud and mismanagement in South Africa at nearly R10 bn ($1.7 bn). The country's lively, independent press regularly features major scandals on its front pages.

Some analysts argue that the relatively open discussion of corruption in South Africa today -- compared with the secrecy and censorship of the apartheid era -- has contributed to public perceptions about the seriousness of the problem. They also note that the apartheid system itself fostered widespread corruption. During the apartheid government's final years, numerous cases of massive fraud and graft came to light, most prominently linked to secret Defence Department funding, efforts to evade international oil sanctions, and the operations of the ethnic "homelands." In a system that denied the vast majority of the population its most basic citizenship rights, there was little scope for public transparency and accountability.

The democratic government that came into office in 1994 promised a new vision of inclusive and open governance, but also inherited some of these problems. Because of the negotiated nature of the political transition and the reconciliation policy of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), many of the administrators, civil servants and policemen of the old national and local bureaucracies were retained, along with their entrenched habits.

As in many other countries undergoing sweeping change, new opportunities for corruption also have arisen. Some ANC provincial officials have been forced from office for suspected involvement in corruption, and scandals have rocked the post office, state telecommunications enterprise, Department of Health, South African Broadcasting Corporation and other institutions. In Gauteng province (which includes Johannesburg), some R1 mn was diverted from a subsidy scheme intended to help low-income families build houses.

To counter such trends, South Africa's new democratic constitution explicitly declared the public administration must be accountable, transparent and imbued with "a high standard of professional ethics." It created a number of independent institutions, including the Public Service Commission, with broad powers to investigate, monitor and evaluate the functioning of the civil service. Among other bodies, the Auditor-General's office is assigned to detect any improper usage of state funds. The Special Investigating Unit, established by the president and headed by Judge Willem Heath, has been seen as the most independent and aggressive anti-corruption institution. In a report to parliament in February 1999, Judge Heath said the unit had saved the government more than R500 mn during only the first six months of its work.

The office of the Public Protector, another constitutionally mandated independent body, incorporates the old ombudsman's office, with a mandate to look into any form of "improper conduct" by government employees or other individuals carrying out public functions. Last year, its national office received about 3,000 complaints from the public, while the one fully functioning regional office in the Northwest Province received 4,000. "There is a culture of complaining," Mr. Gary Pienaar, senior investigator with the Public Protector, told Africa Recovery. "The whole transformation in this country arose from black people saying, 'enough is enough, we're going to stand up for our rights.'" But because the office is severely under-financed, it has difficulty keeping up with all the complaints.

Public engagement, in fact, is a key element of South Africa's anti-corruption strategy. A National Anti-Corruption Summit held in Cape Town in April 1999 featured not only government and public sector participation, but also strong representation from non-governmental and community organizations, trade unions, churches, business and banking institutions, professional and academic bodies, and the media.

Fighting corruption is especially important for the "poor and marginalized," Ms. Safoora Sadek, Executive Director of the South African NGO Coalition, stressed at the summit. This is because corruption "diverts much-needed resources away from community to personal enrichment. Corruption demoralizes and paralyzes our efforts at transformation, and therefore must be stopped."

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