One issue that crops up in virtually every community protest is corruption. There is widespread perception that local councillors and officials are exploiting their public positions to promote their business interests and to enrich themselves at the expense of the public they are supposed to serve.
Cosatu warmly welcomes the fact that government is now taking more decisive action and turning its verbal condemnation of corruption into deeds, including Pravin Gordhan’s commitment that the government “will clamp down on crooks by introducing new public disclosure rules for all prospective government contracts and imposing stiff penalties on companies and individuals involved in tender corruption”.
We applaud Richard Baloyi’s special anti-corruption unit, which will investigate senior government officials with undeclared business interests in dealings with government, performing remunerative duties outside public service, soliciting bribes and receiving grants or benefits unlawfully.
He was absolutely right to say that “Corruption is the single biggest threat to good governance; it has the propensity to collapse an economy”. But all these promises will turn out to be hollow if those involved in the biggest of all the corruption scandals — the arms deal — are not investigated, and anyone found to be implicated is not prosecuted and punished.
We have always insisted that the vast majority of public representatives are honest and committed to serving the people. It is only a small minority who blacken the reputation of us all, and one of the reasons we have called so strongly for a thorough investigation of all allegations is that as well as identifying and punishing the guilty minority, it will exonerate the innocent majority who have been falsely accused.
Cosatu has never said that corruption is a problem confined to the public sector or a problem confined to the ANC. On the contrary it is at least as big a problem in the business world as the public sector and stretches across all political parties.
Indeed, corruption has its roots in the system of capitalism, where the culture of self-enrichment and profit maximisation is deeply entrenched. Price-fixing and offering ‘gifts’ to secure contracts are everyday occurrences. But that cannot be used as a justification for allowing the public sector to sink to the same level of immorality.
People rightly demand higher standards from those they elect to power, particularly those who come from our great liberation struggle. That is why it is so essential to rid our movement and our state of this corrupt minority.
Cosatu’s two past congresses have said that Cosatu will not give the ANC a blank cheque and it will refuse to campaign or support candidates known to be corrupt or lazy.
This is a call on the ANC, working with the Alliance and with the people as whole, to ensure that the candidates selected meet strict criteria of integrity and high moral standards.
Already, if the ANC puts into practice the processes it has outlined, it will help us achieve this objective. We, however, insist that this process must create a space for Alliance structures to ensure that everyone put forward can pass a test of being honest and hard working, with only an interest in working for our people.
Cosatu calls on all local structures of the Alliance not to allow themselves to be bullied and intimidated by anyone into loosening these criteria.
The reports of whistle-blowers being murdered for threatening to expose corruption are a terrifying warning that if we do not get rid of this minority who seek to use our organisations for narrow self-accumulation agendas, the ANC, the Alliance and democracy itself will be in peril.