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Poor hurt most by dodgy procurement

South Africa loses about R25-billion each year to corruption in government procurement – think textbooks not arriving on time at schools, shoddily built RDP houses and tender-rigging. But the real victims are the poor and marginalised, who depend on these procured goods and services. In 2011, Willie Homeyr, then head of the Special Investigating Unit Read more >

CW, TAC to wait for Gauteng health probe conclusion

Corruption Watch and the Treatment Action Campaign to wait until the end of the year for the Special Investigation Unit to complete its investigation in to the Gauteng Health Department Late last year, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) denied Corruption Watch (CW) and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) access to any information gathered during the Read more >

New tool to help fight conflict of interest

Dodgy government officials who spend their time running their own businesses instead of helping to run the country will find it increasingly tricky to protect their private projects from public scrutiny, thanks to new tools that have been created to improve the visibility of any conflicts of interest. A new software package, created by six Read more >

Access to information Act ‘failing’

South Africa’s access-to-information provisions appear to be failing as two out of three formal requests for information are refused, says Right2Know in its recently released Secret State of the Nation report, detailing the state of secrecy and openness in the country. “If compliance with the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) is a litmus Read more >

Corruption Watch’s big news week

Corruption Watch received extensive media coverage in the last week, ranging from our call to release a report on corruption in the Gauteng health department, to our intervention in the Nkandla saga, to the Mvula Trust R30-million tender exposé, and then our first-year anniversary report launch and press briefing. Below follow links to how these Read more >

The sickness in E Cape health department

At a glance, Nomaxabiso Ngxoli* is the happiest professional nurse in South Africa – after she netted a R2.68-million fortune through her employer, the Eastern Cape department of health. But taking a closer look, Ngxoli may suffer the consequences of enriching herself through flouting government policies. This has been revealed in documents that are part Read more >

Zuma gives updates on SIU probes progress

South Africa’s Special Investigating Unit, one of the bodies that potentially has real teeth to tackle corruption, is making headlines for all the wrong reasons lately: it’s been without a permanent head for the last 10 months amid allegations of bitter infighting and poor performance. We’ll bring you a more detailed account of its ill-health Read more >

Richard Mdluli: a comprehensive timeline

Can’t get your head around the convoluted saga of suspended police crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli? Let’s start from the very beginning … 2012 26 June 2012 – New national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega appoints Major General Chris Ngcobo as acting head of Crime Intelligence and Protection and Security Services. 17 June 2012 – Read more >

Mdluli’s tangled web

By Chantelle Benjamin Three months after it was announced that National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Pretoria head Glynnis Breytenbach was asked to submit a response to charges against her, she has been suspended, and it seems that far from working to stabilise the law enforcement leadership, the post-shuffling and removal of staff continues unabated, plaguing not Read more >