3 August 2010

For all the talk about combating corruption, KwaZulu-Natal has no formal interdepartmental strategy to fight corruption, it emerged during today’s meeting between various law enforcement agencies and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature. 

“As a result of the institutional overcrowding and the lack of a comprehensive policy, individual cases of corruption are being handled by everyone and solved by no one,” said IFP KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson on finance Roman Liptak MPL. 

Corruption cases are being dealt with by a plethora of institutions and initiatives such as the South African Police Service, Special Investigating Unit, the Public Protector, the National Anti-Corruption Hotline and the National and Provincial Treasuries without much progress made in the process. 

“Reported cases of corruption are bouncing between individual institutions which largely act as post offices dispatching recommendations to each other, if they act at all,” said Liptak. 

The lack of a co-ordinated provincial anti-corruption policy means that individual government departments have insufficient or non-existent budgets to deal with corruption and no capacity to discipline errant civil servants. 

“It is an indictment of this system that not a single corruption case has been successfully prosecuted in terms of the Public Finance Management Act since the enactment of this legislation in 1999,” said Liptak. 

The legal vacuum surrounding corruption cases also means that the Register for Tender Defaulters provided for by the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act bears no names of tender defaulters six years since its inception in 2004. 

“The lack of leadership in the fight against corruption at provincial level naturally translates into inaction at municipal level where most councils lack such basics as codes of conduct for their employees,” said Liptak.

Contact:
Roman Liptak
078 302 0929