SA government not paying enough attention to land corruption

Globally, the management of land in state or public sector ownership is problematic, with a dearth of transparently implemented policies, frequent corruption in the administration of land assets and lack of capacity to manage such lands effectively. This issue remains underexposed in global and national policies for capacity building and fighting corruption.

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SA’s suspect international co-operation facilitates corruption

The opening up of borders as a result of globalisation has made it possible for corruption to grow with greater facility. Major bribery offences are increasingly transnational in character and it is not unknown for those suspected of grand corruption to seek and find safe havens in foreign jurisdictions to avoid prosecution in their home countries.

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Setas yet to turn around country's skills shortage

They have endured a long barrage of public criticism yet their financial bungles are not abating. Last year they under spent their budgets by a whopping R2,3 billion. Nearly a decade after their establishment, Sectoral Education and Training Authorities (Setas) are yet to make a visible dent on the country's chronic skills shortage.

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All is not well with government tenders

The tender process used to be a tool to foster transparency and prevent corruption in procurement. As a governance mechanism, the tender was always better appreciated in the context of the public sector and its phenomenal procurement undertakings. However, the frequency with which public officials are embroiled in tender controversies unfortunately marks the end of the road for the tender as a reliable antidote to corruption.

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Time for new momentum to asset management in government

Despite qualified audits and probing questions from public accounts committees, asset management in many state departments and other public entities is still not taken seriously. The latest entry in the lengthening list of non-savvy public asset managers is the North West Parks and Tourism Board, which received a qualified audit for the 2006/07 financial year due to, among other things, material weakness in internal asset controls.

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Inadequate oversight over parastatals cripples service delivery

While it takes little cerebral effort to see that all is not well in most state-owned corporations, a generous dose of mental dexterity is required to remedy the problems. This not only pertains to accounting officers and departmental directors-general, but also to executive officers, including cabinet ministers who are often required to give direction to the parastatals.

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Teetering on the brink of corruption abyss?

There has been no shortage of stimuli to feed the perception that South Africa is slowly but surely joining the ranks of corrupt African nations. Several developments are worth noting in this regard. First is the apparent corruption mayhem that has broken out within the law enforcement arena.

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Targeted social protection fuels welfare fraud

To be or not to be a welfare state – that is the question South Africa is yet to resolve, while impoverished millions clamour for access to free but limited services provided by the state, including housing, education and social grants. In the case of the latter service, government has in the meantime opted for a selective protection system that targets specific social groups: the disabled, children, the aged and war veterans.

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More to low-cost housing fraud than meets the eye

On the face of it, the South African government appears to be cracking down on housing fraud. After all, more than 50 000 civil servants who appear to have been receiving low-cost houses irregularly have been identified (see National Administration). Government is in the process of bringing the perpetrators to book.

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Discretionary public contracting: A root of corruption?

Despite the existing array of tools for promoting transparency in public procurement, the awarding of public tenders is still notoriously opaque. So far, audit reports are one of the only publicly available sources of information on public tendering dynamics. However, even these, due to their ‘strictly confidential’ nature, are rarely directly accessible. Most of the time the public feeds on indirect scraps of information leaked to the media. Even then, tender irregularities tend to be exposed only after contracts are awarded.

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