MONDAY, 11.00AM
THE National Party has complied a report on government corruption over the past three years, and concluded that between R13-billion and R20-billion has been lost at central and provincial levels, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Most of that money — between R7,9-billion and R10,6-billion — has been lost to maladministration; the rest has been lost to fraud.
The 350-page study is based on 2 000 newspaper reports from 14 newspapers between 1994 and 1997, analysed by computer to prevent duplication. It does not deal with the period when the National Party was in sole power, but does deal with a period when the National Party was junior member of a coalition government.
The survey says that corruption has increased over the past three years, and has accelerated in the past year. Central government corruption alone involved between 75 000 and 102 000 people. The report slates the Eastern Cape as the most corrupt province, and praises Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa for taking a firm stand against corruption.
The study concludes that “the ANC government is soft on corruption” and recommends that “President Nelson Mandela declare the prevention of corruption a national priority in the same category as crime”.
MONDAY, 6.00PM
Responding to the NP report on Monday, ANC national working committee member described the report as “bizarre”, and that the NP is trying to blame the ANC for the corruption that flourished and entrenched itself during apartheid.
Calling the report “cheap politicking”, Jordan said revealed more about the NP’s naivete than it did to address the issue.
Jordan said the NP is refusing to acknowledge it was the ANC which fought for an open, transparent government with institutions and mechanisms charged with rooting out corruption. Jordan said these include the public protector; a revamped auditor-general’s office; a vibrant Public Accounts Committee; a code of ethics for public servants; and an Open Democracy Bill which encourages civil servants to blow the whistle on corruption.
“These measures became all the more necessary given the frightening levels of corruption which had become endemic under NP rule,” Jordan said. “It is ironic that this new government which is vigorously exposing massive corruption under NP rule or by the very same civil servants which the NP appointed, trained and protected, is blamed by that selfsame party for these misdemeanours,” Jordan added.
He said the NP report cannot be called “serious research” because it relied extensively on press clippings which were based largely on allegations rather than facts. “Indeed, if the NP had the intellectual capacity and the political honesty to do so, it would have established that most of the cases it refers to either took place during its rule or were conducted by elements it appointed and sought to protect through provisions of the interim consitution,” Jordan said.