By Zaheer Cassim and Nicky Rehbock South Africa’s public service is in our bad books again following damning revelations that financial misconduct in state departments could exceed R1-billion for the 2011/2012 financial year. All this while schools go without vital learning material, desks and flushing toilets; hospitals limp along with shortages of life-saving drugs, linen Read more >
CORRUPTION NEWS
Here’s a snapshot of some of the corruption reports* we’ve received from the public recently, so you can get a feel for the kind of trends we're picking up: cops being bribed by drug dealers, Free State Agriculture Department officials embezzling funds and tenders being slipped through the back door. Cops bribed by drug dealers Read more >
HEROES & ZEROES
The passing of the contentious Protection of State Information Bill – or Secrecy Bill as it has come to be referred to – is an act deserving of Corruption Watch’s (CW) zero-of-the-week status. We join other civil society organisations in expressing disappointment at this turn of events in South Africa’s democracy. With the Bill needing Read more >
CORRUPTION NEWS
With the Secrecy Bill needing only President Jacob Zuma’s signature now before it becomes law, civil society organisations are preparing to take their fight to the Constitutional Court, where they feel its ultimate fate should be decided. The National Assembly passed the Protection of State Information Bill, dubbed the Secrecy Bill, yesterday with 190 members Read more >
CORRUPTION NEWS
The Mail & Guardian newspaper has published a correction to its story on corruption investigations regarding unions, so clearing Corruption Watch’s name. Evidence for the story, said the ombud, was simply thin. By Corruption Watch Reporter Corruption Watch’s name has been cleared after the Mail & Guardian published a correction to its lead story in Read more >
CORRUPTION NEWS
By Nicky Rehbock Knowing how our organisation works, using real incidents reported to us by the public, helps to show how we treat all cases from the public equally – whether they involve the abuse of public resources or power in a government department, private company, NGO or union. Broadly speaking, there are two very Read more >
CORRUPTION NEWS
Valencia Talane No councillor in Ivory Park would interfere with the building of new RDP houses or the allocation of houses that had already been built, ward councillor Petru Zitha emphasized at a meeting between residents and City of Johannesburg housing officials. Ivory Park, in the northeastern suburb of Midrand, is in Joburg’s Region A, Read more >
CORRUPTION NEWS
The Corruption Watch Board members emphatically affirm that no unions are presently being investigated – following recent false claims in the press that the organisation is probing at least four Cosatu-affiliated unions and “meddling in Cosatu power battles”. Corruption Watch received 1 500 cases of corruption from the public in 2012. Of the reports received, Read more >
HEROES & ZEROES
Our zero this week is North West’s wealthiest municipality – the Bojanala Platinum District – where close to 30 employees were found to have awarded tenders among themselves and to other government officials, in deals worth millions of rands. The auditor-general’s report and the Municipal Public Accounts Committee oversight report for 2011/12 detail how close Read more >