President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration has been described as more corrupt than his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. Picture: Phando Jikelo/African News Agency (ANA)
THE state of South Africa’s corruption has caused fears as it grows uncontrollably worse.
And, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said it was worried that corruption in the country remained alarmingly bad.
This was after Transparency International recently released the 2023 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) which painted South Africa’s bleak picture as more corrupt than ever.
The country received the worst score of 41, two points below its 2022 score and below the global average of 43 and the lowest score the country has ever received.
Governance expert and political analyst Sandile Swana said this was a sign that President Cyril Ramaphosa has failed to attend to corruption and crime. Swana said this also shows that corruption and crime statistics were not getting better.
“Ramaphosa has disappointed the CR17 funders and those who supported him in the last ANC conference. There has been no good results,” said Swana.
He said this is because the law enforcement agencies are not yet free from the State Capture, adding that there are still many corrupt magistrates and investigators.
“Cases are disappearing within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). For instance, the case of Minenhle Makhanya who is the architecter of Nkandla’s estate of former President Jacob Zuma. The case of Senzo Meyiwa and many other cases in communities.
It is clear that law enforcement is not worthy and corruption cannot end in South Africa until we have the state president and cabinet that decides to end it completely through the exercise of leadership and the building of all institutions that will fight corruption,’’ said Swana.
Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said this shows that corruption has become entrenched under Ramaphosa’s administration. He said Ramaphosa’s attempts to hide behind state capture and Covid-19 does not cut it.
“Worth restating is that business confidence under Ramaphosa has plummeted to levels last seen in the 1980s. Investor conferences have proved to be nothing more than meaningless and fruitless public relations exercises. Unemployment has rocketed to unsustainable levels,” said Seepe, adding that the suggestion that corruption has worsened under Ramaphosa should not come as a surprise.
South Africa was ranked among 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption.
The CPI was calculated using 13 data sources from 12 different institutions that have captured perceptions of corruption within the past two years. It also uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
South Africa was one of 23 countries that reached their lowest scores this year. The country was ranked 72nd out of 180 countries, alongside Burkina Faso, Kosovo and Vietnam on the global index, and came in joint 11th with Burkina Faso on the regional table of sub-Saharan Africa.
The report also noted that 2024 marked 30 years since the end of apartheid and the establishment of a new democratic dispensation in South Africa. However, despite this milestone, and the expectation that systems would be overhauled and corruption would disappear, the country’s score has declined on the CPI over five years, according to the report.
It stated that the failure of law enforcement agencies to bring many of the corrupt to account and to strengthen the rule of law and channels of justice meant that many people living in South Africa had yet to experience the freedom that they were so extravagantly promised.
Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi called on law enforcement agencies, particularly the police and courts, to ensure the successful investigation and incarceration of corrupt individuals.
Vavi said the CPI report showed that corruption levels in the country had remained worse over the past 12 years, adding that Corruption Watch reportedly received 2 110 corruption complaints from the private to public sectors, and from mining to policing.
He said sectors from which the greatest number of complaints came included mining at 38%, policing at 23% and business at 12%. Vavi said it was not surprising that mining and policing had the largest number of complaints.
“In the mining communities, there is the proliferation of illegal mining and many communities facing new mining projects experience a lot of bribery between local leaders and mining companies. Local chiefs and traditional councils are bribed to hand over rights to mining companies without due consultation with community members.
“Demonstrably, this has led to legal tussles and even violent confrontations between different factions of rural communities where mining recently encroached (between supporters of the chiefs who are usually pro-mining, and the general members of the community either concerned about the legitimacy of the process or opposed to mining),” Vavi said.
He said officers were either being bribed by bigger criminal syndicates or extorting money from small criminals. Vavi added that the community always complains that drug dealers in our communities are bribing police officers to evade arrest and incarceration.
Businesses were also affected from different angles. In one instance they were victims and in another, they were perpetrators, said Vavi.
He said that companies involved in construction and infrastructure development in “our communities” were victims of construction mafias – syndicates of parasitic groups who live off by extorting money out of legitimate businesses that are engaged in infrastructure projects in our communities.
“In another, they are perpetrators in that they bribe government officials to get outsourcing contracts, engage in accounting fraud, defraud consumers, and engage in tax-dodging schemes. It has been revealed by different civil society organisations like the AIDC (Automotive Industry Development Centre) and Global Financial Integrity that illicit financial flows including tax dodging amount to between 3% and 7% of SA’s GDP annually.”
“The public sector – from the municipal levels to public services and public companies – is badly managed and characterised by maladministration and procurement irregularities. For example, R134 million was looted in the Bojanala Municipality, North West province, in which the looting spree included the purchase of 2 laptops for R2 million, R359 500 spent on a lunch and travel costs for a one-day trip of 65km and R20 million spent on septic tanks,” Vavi said.
Vavi also added that complaints received from the Basic Education sector amounted to 12%. He said that districts were formally sites for accumulation by comprador bourgeois using stationery procurement, scholar transport and food supply to nutritional schemes of Section 20 schools.
“Different groupings in townships and villages are beginning to contest the space for procurement deals for maintenance. In addition, contestation for promotional posts has led to botched recruitment processes, including allegations that some principals sell entry-level teaching posts,” said Vavi, who added that looting through outsourcing and procurement corruption in the state-owned enterprises (SEOs) was widespread to the point of crippling big entities such as Eskom.
Corruption Watch executive director Karam Singh said it was frustrating that, in a country like South Africa, where the corrupt have been exposed for all to see in such public processes as the Zondo Commission and robust media investigations, so few of the implicated parties had brought to justice.
“There is an urgency to our problem of corruption, as citizens witness the unravelling of cities and infrastructure because of years of impunity and state capture. With elections looming in a few months, the need for accountable leaders of integrity could not be more critical,” he said.
He said the fight for justice and the fight against corruption went hand in hand, saying where the justice system was unable to uphold the rule of law, corruption thrived. At the same time, where corruption was the norm, access to justice was often hindered for the most vulnerable, and justice institutions may be captured by political, economic, or special interest groups, added Singh.
“In an increasingly polarised world, where disinformation governs the narrative, and those with power, whether countries, politicians or business leaders, control that messaging, what we need is a return to justice,” said Singh.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said the report confirmed that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration was more corrupt than that of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.
He said Ramaphosa was directly and personally responsible for South Africa’s plunge in the rankings.
manyane.manyane@inl.co.za