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Will the naming and shaming of public officials found guilty of corruption reduce its prevalence?
Young people who participated in a recent survey on the subject are divided on the matter, with just over half believing that it will, while the rest feel there is little hope for a move like that.
Out of 4 197 young people surveyed between the ages of 18 and 34, 58% felt that corruption numbers would go down if corrupt officials were named and shamed, while a sizeable number of respondents, 38%, did not agree. The remaining 4% either didn’t know or care.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe recently publicised government’s plans to name and shame public officials found guilty of corruption. Although several union movements welcomed the announcement, Corruption Watch urged the minister to take his action further and include those who have been caught but manage to resign ahead of their disciplinary action.
Executive director David Lewis said at the time: “There are many who are not charged in court, but subjected to disciplinary proceedings over which a veil of secrecy is thrown and often takes years to finalise while they are suspended on full pay.”
Pondering Panda, the Cape Town-based research company that conducted the youth survey, drew its results via telephone interviews with respondents from across all the nine provinces in the country. Just over 80% of the participants were black, and out of all the provinces, Gauteng produced the most results.
"As our other surveys have shown, young people feel corruption affects them directly, because it diverts money into the pockets of corrupt politicians and officials,” the company’s Shirley Wakefield was reported on News24 as saying.
She added that young people see government as stuck in a spiral of corruption and would welcome any measure that helps stop it.
Disconcertingly, the survey revealed that well over half of the group sampled, 69%, believe that corruption in government is worse than it was last year. The same survey in 2012 revealed that 88% of participants believed that corruption was holding South Africa back.
South Africa’s young people are pitched to be the pulse of government’s most ambitious project to date: the National Development Plan that is being pioneered by Planning Minister Trevor Manuel.
Through the plan, which centres on a vision spanning over the next 17 years to 2030, corruption will be dealt with using four key actions: strengthening the government’s multi-agency anti-corruption system; protecting whistleblowers, centralising big procurement projects and monitoring the tender system.
