By stealing food allocated to them under the National Schools Nutrition Programme, the constitutional rights of millions of children from poor families are abused, writes Mzwandile Banjathwa. But there are little or no accountability on the part of the many culprits. Does the government condone stealing from children?
In 2022 the Constitutional Court ruled that South Africa’s Executive Ethics Code is unconstitutional in that it does not require full disclosure of all donations to intra-party campaigns. Amendments are due by September this year, writes Natalie Keetsi for the Global Anticorruption Blog – but any amendments will only be as effective as their enforcement.
Attempts to undermine the Political Party Funding Act will take us back to the age of secrecy, writes My Vote Counts in a statement released at the beginning of March 2023. The organisation decries the governing party’s attempts to amend the act in its favour, saying these are a threat to a key tenet of our democracy — that the people must govern.
Now that the regulations for emergency procurement to address the energy crisis have been gazetted, writes amaBhungane’s Caroline James, it is evident that they are woefully inadequate in giving effect to promises made to monitor any potential abuse of the regulations. The whole situation is a licence to loot – again, James adds.
Civil society organisations including Corruption Watch, have demanded clarity and transparency around the new disaster management regulations issued as a response to the electricity crisis in the country. The organisations say the regulations are too broad, too vague, and too opaque – inviting a repeat of the large-scale looting that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Should whistle-blowers who are culpable in the unlawful scheme they help expose, but who have not been criminally convicted in connection with that scheme, be eligible for a reward? This is the interesting question that Harvard Law School research assistant Claire Beutter asks in this article.
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission has announced that it will implement a beneficial ownership information collection and storage regime as soon as relevant regulations are promulgated. This is one of the deficiencies that the Financial Action Task Force requires South Africa to address, as part of its efforts to get off the financial watchdog’s grey list.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and much of his government are clearly not on the same page when it comes to whistle-blowers. While Ramaphosa pays lip service to the important role of whistle-blowers, other senior leaders continue to harass them with impunity. Corruption Watch, with 44 other civil society organisations, has now demanded that the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa stop its shameful victimisation of whistle-blowers such as Martha Ngoye.
South Africa’s debut on the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list will have a positive outcome, if government adheres to its recent statement that “addressing the action items will be in the interest of South Africa, and doing so is consistent with our existing commitment to rebuild the institutions
that were weakened during the period of state capture, the effectiveness of which is essential to addressing crime and corruption”.