Posts

RAISING AWARENESS

Use of data for the public good is growing, albeit slowly

Public procurement is an area of governance that is particularly prone to corruption because it is the nexus of power, money, and decision-making. If any of those factors are abused, the losses for the state can be costly, and the gains for the corrupt substantial. Taxpayers have a right to know where their money goes, Read more >

RAISING AWARENESS

Holding SA police accountable: your rights while engaging with them

The police are supposed to protect the public from crime and violence, but they sometimes engage in unlawful behaviour such as corruption, brutality and torture. Holding police accountable for wrongdoing is essential.   A comprehensive new factsheet has just been released, which helps people to understand police powers, their rights when they encounter police, and Read more >

PUBLICATIONS

CW research reveals opacity, regulation breaches on govt tender portals

Corruption Watch, in partnership with Transparency International, is working on a project called Open Contracting for Health (OC4H), which aims to advocate for greater transparency in health procurement processes. The project developed from our engagements with other civil society organisations, when we became aware of a common frustration – efforts to monitor the implementation of Read more >

PRESS RELEASES

CW innovates with Veza tool, empowers public to hold SAPS accountable

Corruption Watch (CW), in response to the many whistle-blower complaints it has received on police corruption, and inspired by its engagements with communities experiencing police violence and abuse, today launches an interactive open data tool – Veza (a colloquial term for ‘reveal’ or ‘expose’). The first of its kind in South Africa, Veza improves transparency in Read more >

GOVERNANCE

New report on reform strategies in open contracting

The Government Transparency Institute and Transparency International Health Initiative (TIHI) recently published a report focusing on open contracting in low- to middle-income countries (LMIC), with a specific focus on reform strategies for the procurement space. Public contracting is the world’s largest marketplace, with $13-trillion changing hands every year – but opacity and secrecy means that for Read more >

CORRUPTION NEWS

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 >

LITIGATION

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 >

CORRUPTION NEWS

How open are SA’s official statistics?

South Africa recently joined the likes of Burkina Faso, Kenya and Ghana in developing and launching an open data portal that makes published government data accessible for free to the public. The South African Data Portal is one of South Africa’s commitments in the Open Government Partnership, and is currently in a year-long pilot phase. Read more >