Corruption Watch is sitting as a civil society member on the recently-established Infrastructure Built Anti-Corruption Forum, an initiative led by the DPWI and the SIU. The forum’s mandate is to prevent and fight corruption in the implementation of the national infrastructure investment plan which aims, among others, to address a history of massive infrastructure underspending by government and state-owned enterprises.
Corruption Watch will release its next report South Africa needs clean hands on Wednesday 18 August 2021. Based on complaints the organisation has received from the public, this report homes in on the extent to which municipalities have been captured to serve private interests, how municipal managers have abused their power, and how procurement irregularities have diverted resources for essential services, resulting in communities deprived of basic human rights and services.
A Corruption Watch follow-up report on mining royalties, released on 12 August, emphasises that in order for mining royalties to truly benefit the communities on whose land mining takes place, the rightful beneficiaries must be clearly identified. These are almost always the families and villages who are directly impacted by mining, and not the government officials, traditional leaders, consultants, mine employees, and others who have eagerly taken their cut out of royalties they did not deserve.
Today Corruption Watch released a new research report, Improving Transparency and Accountability in the Flow of Benefits to Mining Communities, and an accompanying overview of the related legislation. The report explores the best interventions to shape mechanisms designed to channel benefits to communities, while improving transparency and accountability, and rooting out the corruption and fraud that has dogged the mining industry for so long.
The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services invites nominations from individuals, organisations, institutions and civil society for four suitable persons to be appointed as members of the Information Regulator for a period of five years. Applications close on Monday, 30 August 2021.
South Africa’s Auditor-General, with the corresponding office in the Seychelles, are the only two supreme audit institutions (SAIs) ranked by the World Bank as having the full independence to do their work. This was revealed in an assessment of 118 SAIs, the Supreme Audit Institutions Independence Index: 2021 Global Synthesis Report, released by the World Bank on 4 August 2021.
Sustaining momentum and accelerating the implementation of beneficial ownership disclosure will remain key in regional efforts to tackle corporate secrecy in Africa, write Maureen Kariuki, Karabo Rajuiliand, and Edwin Wuadom Warden for the Open Government Partnership. The continent’s efforts to mobilise its vast resources remain hamstrung by corporate anonymity, which facilitates illicit financial flows and the loss of billions of dollars every year.
On 12 August Corruption Watch will launch its latest research report into mining royalties. Titled Improving Transparency and Accountability in the Flow of Benefits to Mining Communities, the report aims to understand how best to intervene in shaping the financial and legal mechanisms used to funnel benefits to mining-affected communities.
In recent years the illegal perlemoen trade has overlapped with the increased flow of drugs such as methamphetamine (tik) and methaqualone (white pipe) into and methamphetamine to South Africa, with the former commodity being traded for the latter. Corruption plays a part in this, as does lax policing, poor regulation, and a huge demand for the marine delicacy from the Far East.
Visit our GivenGain R20 for Change page and help us demand transparency in our systems, accountability in our leaders, and better empowerment and protection of whistle-blowers. By donating R20 a month, you’ll be supporting our work with communities across the country, helping them to know and access their rights and reduce the corruption that robs people of resources intended for their benefit.