South Africas deteriorating position on an international corruption index reflects worsening perceptions of the country, reports Ferial Haffajee
South Africa has dropped 10 places from last year in an international survey of corruption. The country was placed 33rd in a poll of 52 countries by Transparency International (TI), a corruption-tracking non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Germany.
Two years ago, South Africa was at 21st place and slipped two points to 23rd last year. But this year, the country scored 4,95 out of a total of 10 on the Corruption Perception Index. TIs survey is based on interviews with leaders of multinational corporations and measures their perceptions. Each country is assessed by at least four surveys carried out by international research organisations.
The index is a measure of lost development opportunities, says Peter Eigen, the Berlin-based chair of TI. It is also a measure of the level of kickbacks, greased palms and other forms of graft in many countries. Because it measures the perceptions of the captains of international industry, it is their view on how corruptible a particular government is.
Its a wake-up call, says Stiaan van der Merwe, the executive manager of the local chapter of TI, which was formed just two months ago. Next year, South Africa will hear a much louder wake-up call because Van der Merwe intends to track corruption across the private and NGO sectors too. It takes two to tango, he says, pointing out that kickbacks and bribes to government officials are paid for by business. Van der Merwe adds: Bribery becomes government subsidised.
In the past few years, South Africa has had a number of multi-million-rand corruption scandals, ranging from Mbongeni Ngemas misuse of millions in Aids education money, to the gross abuse of funds by the Independent Broadcasting Authority and consultant Eugene Nyatis life high on the hog in Mpumalanga. These and other scandals have been splashed across the media, both here and abroad. But dinner tables across the country also reverberate with smaller bits of gossip about kickbacks and open bribes like the one about the Mercedes Benz parked outside a senior government officials house with a tender document left inside. The car was for keeps; the tender was his to scrutinise and award if he saw fit.
Every day, the auditor generals office is bombarded with allegations of misspending and corruption. We have to sift through whats real and whats not, says Bertie Loots, the deputy auditor general, adding: We need to work very hard to change these perceptions of corruption.
Loots says its important to look at the degree of variance or disagreement between the different surveys. South Africas rate, at 3,08%, is the second highest on the index. This seems to indicate that the country is on a knife-edge as far as corruption goes. It could go either way.
The Public Protector Selby Baqwa says that corruption levels are unacceptable in the country but he also questions whether South Africa really is more corrupt than before. Is it because corruption is increasing or because there is more transparency now?
South Africa also has more corruption watchdogs than ever before, among them the public protector, a new anti-corruption unit for the police service and the promise of agencies to deal with corporate crime.
But often they are underfunded and do not work together, duplicating each others investigations and not really making an impact, says Baqwa, who will soon meet treasury officials to discuss additional funding.
His office is drowning under a deluge of cases and he now wants to set up provincial offices to improve their investigative capacity.
We need to establish a national integrity system and to network more effectively, says Van der Merwe.
That could see South Africa clamber higher up next years index. This year, Denmark was ranked number one with a score of 9,94, with 10 the best result. It was followed by two other Scandinavian countries, Finland and Sweden.
South Africa is one of only two African countries listed. Nigeria was placed last, while South Africa is in the company of Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Uruguay, which all achieved similar scores. The index measures grand corruption endemic and systemic graft worth many millions of dollars to a countrys economy. TI wants its index to become a reference tool for investors and wants them to consult it in the same way they would look at a countrys inflation figures.
Eigen says: Some governments rejected the implicit criticism [of the index] out of hand, others have acted on it … A clear link has now been established between the level of corruption and foreign direct investment.
Ken Warren of the South African Chamber of Business says its perception is that the incidence of corruption is growing. But he also notes that while investors see crime as the biggest problem in South Africa, it is not yet a significant factor in their decision to invest here.