No plan to punish corrupt officials

More than a year after rampant looting of hundreds of millions of rands in municipal contracts, there is still no clear strategy to probe and punish officials and family members who unlawfully benefited from corrupt tenders. Law enforcement agencies and other responsible state institutions were passing the buck this week despite the Co-operative Governance Department acknowledging that it was aware of the messy municipal finances and corrupt processes. The auditor-general’s report showed that in the past financial year, councillors, municipal officials and their family members pocketed R814m from illegal municipal deals and were not brought to book.

No action has been taken so far even though a Hawks spokesman said yesterday that there were investigations. But Dennis Adriao said he could not divulge the details. It is not clear if municipalities have taken internal disciplinary action against the culprits. The Sunday Independent has enquired whether any of the law enforcement agencies, department and state watchdog bodies were probing the billions of rand in irregular contracts. The responsible department, Co-operative Governance, has yet to “activate” its dormant anti-corruption unit. The department’s acting chief of staff, Nghamula Nkuna – who acknowledged that they anticipated the poor financials – admitted that the unit has not been operating since the Jacob Zuma administration came to power in 2009.

“We need an organ that can pounce on corruption,” he said. While ailing municipalities were being looted, Nkuna said the unit was not operational because it had not ironed out “grey areas” relating to how it should “engage with law enforcement agencies”. He said the department was currently in talks with the Special Investigating Unit. The SIU, which forms part of the government’s anti-corruption task team, said it could only act if it received a proclamation from the Presidency. SIU spokesman Boy Ndala said the unit was still probing corruption cases which were proclaimed by the president two years ago. Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj admitted yesterday that Zuma had not made any proclamation relating to the latest auditor-general’s findings. “An SIU proclamation has to go through processes.

“There has to be a recommendation and then it has to go through Justice. “At this stage I am not aware that it is on [Zuma’s] desk,” he said, adding that “there is recognition that something has to be done”. The consolidated provincial figures in the AG’s report – which was released two weeks ago – also revealed R1.15 billion contracts that were altered and extended without apparent reasons and contracts worth R658 million that were awarded without competitive bids. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela yesterday said “we know there is wrongdoing, we just have to find the people responsible”. She said she was likely to approach municipalities and provinces later in the year to find out what action had been taken. “If [municipalities and provincial departments] have done the work, we will be happy, if not we can put them on terms and ask them to give us an action plan,” she said.

She told The Sunday Independent her office would spend the next two months studying the AG’s report and would meet Terence Nombembe next month. Madonsela, who is on a nationwide roadshow, said she was investigating housing corruption complaints. She said her roadshow had already uncovered allegations of conflict of interests in municipalities. Anti-corruption commentators and municipal analysts say the looting points to rampant violation of supply chain management regulations, and impunity on a grand scale. Cosatu general secretary and Corruption Watch co-founder Zwelinzima Vavi said there was a “disappearance of political will” in the ANC to deal with conflict of interests. Vavi said the AG was “now sounding like a broken record.” “It is a serious crisis which is leading to the collapse of local government”.

There was a “crisis of a collapse in morality” within government as result of offences going unpunished. “We should all be worried. “But there is a growing number of people in the ANC who have come to the realisation that there needs to be more decisive action taken against those kinds of practices or we will face the consequences,” Vavi said. He added that “no one will take us seriously when we say we are opposed to corruption”. Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Shireen Mukadam, said the problem lay with enforcement because legislation calling for councillors and officials to declare their interests is already in place. “Financial disclosure is meant to be a preventative tool. “Most people comply with the disclosure regulations, but there is no one checking for accuracy and [the fullness of the disclosure].

“If there is inadequate monitoring, it undermines the whole disclosure regime,” she said. Meanwhile, officials in supply chain management and internal audit divisions of municipalities across the country are leaving the door wide open for corruption to spiral out of control, analysts said. Nombembe said 72% of supply chain management contraventions, such as unfair bid processes, unsigned contracts where money is paid to suppliers and unexplained contract extensions, were only identified when the AG’s teams audited municipal financials. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts chairman Themba Godi believes the hiring of incompetent people in the supply chain management and financial divisions is intentional.

“If you look at that report, 70% of the employees in finance did not have the necessary skills. “The hiring of these unskilled people is very deliberate to help facilitate this corruption,” he said. Like Vavi, Godi says there was dearth of political will to deal with the problem. “From where I stand, the local government system is facing imminent collapse if action is not taken… “The culture of impunity is rampant,” he said. Vavi said part of the problem was the fact that national government departments were not doing much better when it came to managing their finances. He said the ruling party needed decade long “cleansing” drive to rectify the problem.