CW lauds minister’s action on procurement

Kenneth Brown has been announced as the new chief procurement officer by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan during his budget speech on Wednesday 28 February in Parliament. Brown is currently Treasury's deputy director-general. Corruption Watch welcomes this move, as 22% of the more that 1 300 cases of corruption reported to the organisation by the public Read more >

New tool to help fight conflict of interest

Dodgy government officials who spend their time running their own businesses instead of helping to run the country will find it increasingly tricky to protect their private projects from public scrutiny, thanks to new tools that have been created to improve the visibility of any conflicts of interest. A new software package, created by six Read more >

The Act of protecting personal info

Dear CW, There has been a lot of talk about the Secrecy Bill and the Promotion of Access to Information Act. I am now hearing about another act called the Protection of Personal Information Act. What is the purpose of this law? Is it in force? And how does it relate to other legislation dealing Read more >

Number of national key points up by 54% in five years

In the last five years there has been a 54% increase in the number of “national key points” across the country, says Right2Know in its recently released Secret State of the Nation report. The increase has happened under the National Key Points Act – which has been referred to as an “apartheid-era” national security law. Read more >

Access to information Act ‘failing’

South Africa’s access-to-information provisions appear to be failing as two out of three formal requests for information are refused, says Right2Know in its recently released Secret State of the Nation report, detailing the state of secrecy and openness in the country. “If compliance with the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) is a litmus Read more >

Newsletter for our partners: February 2013

Dear Friends, Corruption Watch welcomes you to its first monthly newsletter to keep you up to date with developments at the organisation. Introduction Last month marked a year since CW was launched. We are pleased to share with you news that we are making meaningful strides as detailed in our first annual report. The 3 Read more >

Zuma address: substance lacking

President Jacob Zuma’s 2013 State of the Nation Address, delivered yesterday evening, did not impress much. His message on corruption lacked a critical element of redress – accountability. Zuma did a reasonably good job of hailing the work done by those organs of state tasked with fighting the corruption that has worried many South Africans Read more >

‘Local government the weakest link’

Financial woes plaguing local government create an ideal environment for fraud and corruption to fester, the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) said this week. This was in reaction to Auditor -General Terence Nombembe’s statement that financial controls in government departments are slipping, particularly in municipalities. He was talking at a public sector forum convened Read more >

Nala Municipality promises a turnaround

The troubled Free State municipality of Nala has received a lot of attention since the beginning of 2013, with much of its dirty laundry – including fraud and corruption allegations and poor service delivery reports – being hung out in the last few weeks. Read our original article about this here. In between a visit Read more >