Corruption

Zinhle Sokhela:  PCB Director

Isn’t it sad that all this corruption cannot be arrested?  Today, as I write there are reports of over fifty teachers being paid by the Education Department for qualifications that they do not have.   This has gone on for years and cost taxpayers millions.    Recently, too, there have been revelations of vast sums of money being stolen from the allocations for welfare grants.    I wonder why government is powerless to stop all this.    If words alone could do so, it would be achieved.   There is a never-ending stream of promises about how corruption will be dealt with in a zero tolerance fashion, but at the end of the day, few seem to be prosecuted and the disease continues to rage.    The Prevention  and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act was passed in 2004.   It is very clear as to what constitutes corruption.  Yet the talk continues to be about forums and other institutions to deal with the problem.   The truth is that we have a law which, if properly enforced, would go a long way to controlling the situation.    For example, this law established a Register of Tender Defaulters.   People who defraud the state by presenting false information about their companies, or by accepting work that they do not have the capacity to perform, should be listed and subsequently banned from being contracted to the state for a length of time.    We all know that the country abounds in Tender Defaulters, yet there is no name on this register and, as far as we know, no one has been convicted in terms of the Act. 

Corruption is not just about bribes.    It is also about the appointment of friends and relatives to lucrative positions and the appointment of party political loyalists even if they lack the necessary skills.  It is also about people who earn a state salary for doing public work, yet also operate private businesses ‘on the side’.   They often use the employers’ time to conduct their businesses, or even his resources, such as telephones, email, stationery and the like.    In addition, they utilise the contacts and information gathered through their official duties to advance their own business success.   Access to information is so critical in the business world and these people have a very unfair advantage over people who are not privy to the kind of information that is available to senior public servants.      As far as I can make out, government is not in favour of this kind of ‘moonlighting’  and there are rules which make it compulsory for officials (and elected representatives by the way) to declare their private interests and get permission to engage in another job.   But these are not enforced.   In our city, the majority of councillors had not declared their interests for years, despite annual qualifications by the Auditor-General in this regard.    The Municipal Manager was powerless to enforce the code of conduct; so, too, was the Speaker whose responsibility it was.    When it came to the crunch, the political will was missing as leaders where reluctant to make trouble for their colleagues.

It is absolutely appropriate that COSATU should be in the forefront of criticism of government about this limp response to a national problem.    We easily forget just how much money goes down the drain as a result of corrupt activities.   A lot more is wasted when government appoints incompetent   contractors to provide services and products.   There are stories of locomotives that cannot be used and of computer systems that don’t work.   These contracts may not have been awarded dishonestly, but they do reflect abject indifference as far as state expenditure is concerned.    When state resources are wasted, or diverted to private pockets, it is the poor that suffer the most.    It is also significant that criticism from within the ANC alliance is taken more seriously than that which, predictably,  comes from the political opposition.    In this sphere, the Arms Deal is a central case.   Everyone recognises that this was not entirely above board, but investigation is consistently deferred.  What is it that government wishes to hide?

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