On Voting for Reduced Corruption
South Africans voting in forthcoming municipal elections on 18 May 2011 do have ways to challenge their elected representatives about how to stop corruption in public procurement where it is so rampant.
Daryl Balia, Programme Head, Corruption and Governance Programme, ISS Cape Town Office
On the eve of South Africa’s municipal elections on 18 May it is timely to reflect on the country’s transition to democracy that brought an end to hundreds of years of racial segregation. Political parties would have the electorate believe, as their many posters proclaim, that a cross next to one of their names will ultimately bring about reduced corruption.
This third round of elections follows the seismic shift in the South African political landscape that created the basis for a new society to be built on the demise of apartheid. Unfortunately, though, it is not one free of corruption or where ‘zero tolerance’ of it is anything but a pipe dream. If apartheid was a form of institutionalised corruption, especially in the former ‘homelands’, many of its essential features have not been obliterated overnight, but carried over into the new political dispensation. With the rise of organised crime and South Africa’s prominent role in the international community, it is clear that corruption has assumed a new and peculiar character requiring ongoing state intervention, if not, interference.
Thanks to the print media we know that corruption at the local government or municipal level has reached endemic proportions as we look in vain for a way to bring this grafting ‘juggernaut’ under control. Or might there be one or two steps to find our way towards some semblance of a solution?
We should note that the Nelson Mandela administration first began looking seriously into corruption matters in 1997 when Cabinet commissioned a short but groundbreaking study that identified, among other concerns, the need for substantial resources to make the fight against corruption effective. While the public sector approach received fresh impetus from a historic conference subsequently held in Parliament in 1998, it was only at the national summit held a year later that the raw elements of a national strategy were articulated.
This was achieved in close consultation with representatives of labour, business, the faith communities, and civil society who with government would later form the National Anti-Corruption Forum. While this body has remained largely ineffective, its creation was symbolic of a national consensus that was emerging on the urgency to combat and prevent corruption. The time for deliberations about how to fight corruption was thought to be over in 1999 as the challenge then moved towards implementation of a new national strategy against it. One needs to recall that this was on the back of Mr Mandela’s last speech to Parliament where he made a clarion call to all South Africans saying, ‘Our hope for the future depends on our resolution as a nation in dealing with the scourge of apartheid.’ Well, more than a decade has passed since then and we now know, unlike before, that corruption cannot be wished out of the public service where so much of the nation’s focus has been in terms of the abuse of public office for private benefit.
It is worth noting that the primary focus of the anti-corruption strategy that was very successfully implemented in Hong Kong many years ago was on the public service, particularly the role of police officers in spreading corruption and the speedy enactment of laws to control their illicit activities. The building of any coherent national integrity system to counteract corruption presupposes the existence of a public service that will for the most part provide ‘frank and fearless’ advice to political office bearers.
Of equal importance is the need for professional public servants with experience in managing changes in government policy and being effective in serving the government of the day. According to Transparency International, few other ‘activities create temptations or offer more opportunities for corruption than public sector procurement’. It is therefore no surprise that the need to improve the processes involved in government procurement of goods and services is being repeatedly acknowledged as critical to the national strategy against corruption succeeding, and especially against a backdrop of startling revelations about the abuse of such processes on an almost daily basis.
The country’s first anti-corruption conference of 1998 had called for the development of ‘simpler and more effective treasury and procurement measures that prevent and pinpoint corruption and ensure value for money’, while the National Summit resolved a year later to ‘publicise and support the blacklisting of businesses, organizations and individuals who are proven to be involved in corruption and unethical conduct’. It is known that employees and businesses which have been party to acts of corruption often change employers within the public sector or, in the case of businesses, change name or the segment/location in which they operated. Thus such prohibition of corrupt individuals and businesses from any benefits to be derived from government tendering systems is welcome, if it can be policed.
Some continue to push for extreme caution here to prevent litigation being initiated against the state by any tendering party placed on such a list. The blacklisting system cannot function free of litigious interference, however, and thus leads some to view it as rather ambitious.
This brings us to the question of why greater use of ‘anti-corruption pacts’ is not being considered. Based on the Integrity Pact model developed by Transparency International, signing such a pact for a specific project requires that neither contractor nor supplier would pay or demand bribes. Each contractor for a project in question would disclose all payments made in connection with the contract to anybody, including agents and family members. Sanctions against the winning contractor would remain in force (if violations of the pact take place) until the contract had been fully executed. Undertakings given by a bidding company would have to involve all its directors, or all members in the case of a close corporation, and consent has to be given for government to blacklist any company guilty of corruption in terms of common law principles.
Through such a mechanism it is possible that companies would refrain from bribery as they would have assurances that their competitors would behave likewise. Ultimately, the primary objective would be to enable government to reduce the high cost, namely wastage, market distortion, and possible litigation, and the overall impact of corruption on public procurement. Integrity pacts are worthy of implementation, for example, when the number of competitors in a capital intensive industry like armaments is quite limited, and should involve civil society in the monitoring process.
One of the most effective ways of ensuring transparency in the procurement process is to engage independent teams or individuals in a monitoring role. Bidding companies must be encouraged to develop their own codes of conduct so that their ethical standards are clear, and government as well, so that suppliers will know what best practices are being followed. Such principles as efficiency, accountability, transparency, fairness and impartiality, which are intrinsic to the public service ethos at all levels of government, must form part and parcel of any public procurement framework.
The above is but one example of initiating change for the better. Reforming the public service is therefore key to reducing corruption and one hopes that South African voters will translate that message appropriately into political capital when they cast their ballots soon. Though, whether or not and to what extent voter turnout provides any indication of how frustrated citizens are about current levels of corruption remains the burning question.
