GGLN Round Table Workshop: The State of Impropriety in Local Government
(Posted 23 July 2009)
Nontando Ngamlana represented Afesis-corplan at the GGLN Round Table workshop in Cape Town, 6-7 July 2009. She presented a paper entitled, The State of Impropriety in Local Government.
The purpose of the presentation was to analyse the extent of corruption in South Africa in all spheres of government. In order to do this, the paper highlighted various strategies put in place to combat corruption and how successful those have been. It looked at the impact corruption has had on service delivery with a focus on local government; and made recommendations towards strengthening anti-corruption strategies.
The following recommendations were made:
1. Balancing capacity within the public sector to enforce and comply with legislation. Currently, the courts are overloaded and struggle to retain prosecutors. This leads to backlogs, delays and withdrawals in corruption cases.
2. The legislative mandate of some law enforcement and other agencies overlap. This should be resolved by organisational and structural means, clarification of roles, and improved co-operation and co-ordination.
3. A ‘three pronged approach’ is today considered the best practice in the area of anti-corruption: prevention, public education, and investigation/prosecution. South Africa needs to strengthen its efforts in these areas.
4. Whistle blowing is crucial to the detection of corruption. The legislative framework is in place, but few departments have a hotline, and even fewer have effective procedures to operate it effectively. And yet, this is the only whistle-blowing mechanism departments rely on.
5. Attempts to develop anti-corruption partnerships between the government and civil society have not been successful. The experience of the Eastern Cape’s Provincial Corruption Forum and the Network Against Corruption show that careful thought and planning must be given to partnership initiatives in order to ensure their success
6. There is a need for a central database of cases, which would allow the government to learn from incidents in order to understand corruption better and to be able to design preventive strategies.
The purpose of the presentation was to analyse the extent of corruption in South Africa in all spheres of government. In order to do this, the paper highlighted various strategies put in place to combat corruption and how successful those have been. It looked at the impact corruption has had on service delivery with a focus on local government; and made recommendations towards strengthening anti-corruption strategies.
The following recommendations were made:
1. Balancing capacity within the public sector to enforce and comply with legislation. Currently, the courts are overloaded and struggle to retain prosecutors. This leads to backlogs, delays and withdrawals in corruption cases.
2. The legislative mandate of some law enforcement and other agencies overlap. This should be resolved by organisational and structural means, clarification of roles, and improved co-operation and co-ordination.
3. A ‘three pronged approach’ is today considered the best practice in the area of anti-corruption: prevention, public education, and investigation/prosecution. South Africa needs to strengthen its efforts in these areas.
4. Whistle blowing is crucial to the detection of corruption. The legislative framework is in place, but few departments have a hotline, and even fewer have effective procedures to operate it effectively. And yet, this is the only whistle-blowing mechanism departments rely on.
5. Attempts to develop anti-corruption partnerships between the government and civil society have not been successful. The experience of the Eastern Cape’s Provincial Corruption Forum and the Network Against Corruption show that careful thought and planning must be given to partnership initiatives in order to ensure their success
6. There is a need for a central database of cases, which would allow the government to learn from incidents in order to understand corruption better and to be able to design preventive strategies.