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State, society can fight corruption

Corruption was a “cancer and a scourge” that could only be beaten if government, business and civil society work together with law enforcement. This was the message from KwaZulu-Natal’s top prosecutors who met in Durban on Wednesday to commemorate International Anti-Corruption day. KZN Director of Public Prosecutions, advocate Moipone Noko said state prosecutors should lead the fight against corruption by “living within their means”. She said those seeking a lavish lifestyle which they could not afford made them susceptible to corruption. “Corruption is a scourge that is eating at the moral fibre of society… It is linked to greed,” Noko said. She said since April this year, the NPA in KZN finalised 22 corruption cases against individuals. They won 18 and lost four cases. Noko said corruption was not just confined to government entities but to business as well.

“Corruption happens across the board. It is all over... We have a specialised commercial crime unit that has a mandate to deal with corruption. We also have the organised crime unit within the NPA that deals most with corruption and tender fraud. Over and above that, all our prosecutors are equipped to deal with corruption cases,” she said. Advocate Knorx Molele, head of the Assets Forfeiture Unit in KZN said that law enforcement needed to make it hard for any person attempting to get into crime. Molele said law enforcement and the government needed to work together to root out corruption. He said that many of the cases that passed through his office were a direct result of accounting officers at municipal and government departments not doing their job. Molele said that officials and companies found guilty of corruption should be blacklisted from working or getting government contracts.

“Officials implicated in corruption are recycled. They move from one department to another and we never blacklist them. If they are blacklisted then they will never be allowed to do business with the government,” he said. Advocate Gert Nel, of general prosecutions in Pietermaritzburg, said misconduct often led to corruption. “We have wonderful legislation to deal with corruption but often we only deal with the symptoms of corruption and not the disease itself. “The diseases is the bad morals found in every citizen,” he said.

Source: www.iol.co.za

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State, society can fight corruption

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