Posts

Osisa report: efficacy of SADC’s anti-corruption bodies

Results of a study on anti-corruption bodies in the Southern African region were released in the region towards the end of July. Titled Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the report was commissioned by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa Read more >

Focus on civil society funding rather than BEE, says CEO

By Aphiwe Deklerk First published in Business Day Magda Wierzycka‚ CEO of Sygnia Asset Management‚ has called on companies to ignore black economic empowerment (BEE) points and rather fund civil rights organisations fighting corruption in the country. She said that considering Sahara Computers, a business owned by the Gupta family, had a level 6 BEE Read more >

Don’t let corruption in SA become normalised

It is not true that corruption has no victims, writes William Gumede, associate professor at Wits University’s School of Governance. Rather, it causes “disastrously inefficient economic, social and political outcomes” – among others, it diverts public resources from critical development projects to less productive, less job creation and less growth spurring ones, discourages long-term investment, Read more >

e-Governance: a useful anti-corruption tool?

Many organisations today use online technology to do business, arrange insurance and comply with regulations governing their sectors. The removal of the human element from these transactions helps make them efficient and nearly error-free, much to the satisfaction of those engaging. But can we safely say that e-governance processes work in eliminating the potential of Read more >

Fighting land corruption in a gender sensitive way

Land is critical for women in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in rural communities where they contribute substantially to food production and often depend on cash crops for income. But when customary law fails to recognise women as legitimate land owners, men are able to manipulate women’s land rights for their own gain, resulting in corrupt activities Read more >

SA lags in using open data for anti-corruption

Transparency International (TI) recently launched its G20 Anti-Corruption Open Data Studies, which assesses how countries in that group are implementing the G20 anti-corruption open data principles. The main objectives of the study were to establish how much progress G20 governments have made in implementing open data as part of an anti-corruption regime; what are the Read more >

Court to supervise Sassa grants payments

The Constitutional Court today handed down a unanimous, blistering judgment in the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) matter. Judge Johan Froneman ruled that the court will take over supervision of the implementation of the current and future grants process, indicating that the bench had no trust in social development minister Bathabile Dlamini. “This judgment Read more >

Anti-corruption programmes must fit the issue

By Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church The second instalment in the four-part CDA Perspectives series on corruption, criminal justice and legitimacy looks at the mismatch between anti-corruption programmes and the problems they are supposed to tackle. When programming does not fit the issue it is meant to address, creating significant change becomes highly unlikely. Part one of the Read more >

Understanding and combating corruption

By Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church This four-part series on corruption, criminal justice and legitimacy was first published on the CDA Perspectives blog – this is a platform for people working in the fields of humanitarian assistance, peace practice, sustainable development and corporate operations in contexts of conflict and fragility. The blog provides an outlet for these professionals Read more >