ANC seen to condone corruption – Jordan
Former Arts and Culture minister Pallo Jordan has said there is a perception that the ANC condones corruption, SABC radio news reported on Wednesday.
“That perception will not be eliminated except by resolute and tough action against the corrupt in our ranks,” Jordan said during a lecture at Emperor's Palace on Tuesday.
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Public Works head in war on corruption
Admitting he was under pressure to clean up the Department of Public Works and make it more efficient, Minister Thulas Nxesi said yesterday he was searching for hard-working, talented staff, regardless of their race.
Nxesi also promised to clamp down on corruption and fraud when he outlined his turnaround strategy for the beleaguered department to staff in Port Elizabeth.
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Cape Town opens anti-fraud dept
Cape Town – The City of Cape Town has established a forensic department to tackle fraud and corruption, Mayor Patricia de Lille said on Wednesday.
"We find that a small minority of people with criminal intent have attempted to defraud the city and its ratepayers," she said in a statement.
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Housing corruption: DA to submit corruption complaint against ward councillor
Press release
This morning my colleagues and I submitted a formal complaint of corruption to the Speaker of the City of Cape Town against ANC ward councillor Thobile Gqola, councillor for ward 35 of the City.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that Cllr. Gqola has contravened the Councillors' Code of Conduct by using his position for personal benefit, and may therefore be liable to be removed as a councillor.
Cllr. Gqola allegedly offered residents in Crossroads the assurance of getting a state-subsidised house in exchange for R7 000 paid directly to him. He allegedly took multiple payments from residents in exchange for each of them receiving a house in the Philippi East Phase Five housing project.
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SABC corruption halts R77-million building project
Corruption at the SABC has delayed the construction of new premises for the Mpumalanga offices and studios in Nelspruit.
The architect and a number of SABC officials involved in the R77 million project are being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit.
This was revealed to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications during an oversight visit to Mpumalanga in March.
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Hawks captain in court on corruption charges
Police captain Esmeralda Bailey appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Cape Town on Thursday, on eight charges including corruption.
Bailey was allegedly caught in a police trap illegally selling police uniforms, firearms and ammunition.
She faces charges of corruption, possession of ammunition and drugs, as well as five counts of defeating the ends of justice.
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R21-million tender fraud – Mercs, Porsche seized
Properties, luxury cars and trucks owned by suspected fraudsters were seized by law enforcement agencies across Gauteng on Wednesday, the NPA said.
They were acting on behalf of the Ekurhuleni metro municipality, which was defrauded of more than R21m in a computer tender, said National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga.
In the combined operation with the Hawks, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), and the Anti-Corruption Task Team, we seized 12 residential homes, several trucks and 27 luxury cars and motorbikes," Mhaga said.
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Apartheid was not that bad: a case of peculiar nostalgia
There is an interesting narrative emerging in South Africa’s general societal discourse, and it’s connected to the phenomenon of corruption. The narrative makes a comparison between the corruption and service-delivery failures of post-apartheid governance and the “efficiency” of the apartheid state.
By the end of last month, there had been a total of nine service-delivery protests since the beginning of March, violent protests whose beginnings can be traced back to 2004, most of which were staged in predominantly black areas.
Each of these protests pointing to corruption, municipal incompetence and other forms of ineptitude. At the end of 2011 the head of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Willie Hofmeyer, reported that between R25–R30-billion had been embezzled or misappropriated in one way or the other in the last financial year, through some form of incompetence or corruption. What is worse is that the Treasury concurred with Hofmeyrs’s findings. Enough money to pay for the e-toll debt and then some.
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Letter: SA needs moral rebirth at all levels
On Tuesday last week Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, in a seminal public address at Stellenbosch, intimated that if corruption was not decisively dealt with it had the potential to "distort the economy and derail democracy". She explained further that we are "at the tipping point" and that corruption has become "endemic in our country both in the public and private sectors".
She also said South Africa needed selfless leadership and an end to impunity in its battle with maladministration and corruption.
Ms Madonsela, as the public protector, is not a party politician. But in accordance with chapter 9 of the constitution she occupies an independent office, mandated with the obligation to expose and redress maladministration and corruption in the body politic and public administration of South Africa. We ignore her warning at our peril.
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