Ferial Haffajee
At the front line of the corruption battle in Gauteng, Barbara van Jaarsveld has bagged a rotten principal. Her quiet schoolmarm demeanour gives way momentarily to a victorious grin. The principal will be charged for renting out his school’s electricity to 10 surrounding shacks.
“He ran extension chords from the school and charged R100 for each line,” says the woman who runs the Gauteng’s corruption hotline. The toll-free line has notched up 312 calls since its inception in March.
Small-time crooks like the electricity- purveying principal have been nabbed. So have government employees who use official cars as taxis by night. A hospital superintendent who received illegal cheques worth some R1,4-million has been suspended.
The hotline is the brainchild of MEC of Economic Affairs for Gauteng Jabu Moleketi. Posters plastered around the province implore: “Be a responsible citizen and help the government to stamp out the rot in our civil service.”
What’s the rot? “Corruption in the form of theft, bribes demanded, mismanagement, poor treatment of the public by government officials.”
“The hotline is only the tail-end of
our fight against corruption,” says Roland Hunter, the superintendent general of Moleketi’s department.
Lower-profile efforts include tightening up financial systems to cut down on fraud. Hunter has become a ghost-buster: he is spearheading an audit of the government computer system to ensure that ghost workers who collect cheques every month are exorcised.
Van Jaarsveld is also responsible for investigating cheque fraud. Her department has recouped R3,5-million of the estimated R6-million lost to fraud this year alone. A white-board is updated daily with the amounts recovered.
The department works with the police, the Heath commission, the public protector and other authorities to investigate and eventually charge wrongdoers.
The following are a range of hotlines that you can call if you happen across corruption.
l Gauteng government corruption line 0800 600 933. A reference number is assigned and you can call and check periodically on the investigation.
l Pensions hotline 0800 117 669. No reply when the Mail & Guardian tried it.
l KwaZulu-Natal government fraud and corruption line 0800 313 233. Answered after three rings. The three staff members will take a complaint and assign a reference number on any corruption complaint.
l Post Office Crime-buster 0800 033 554. Answered after three rings and then five minutes in an automated queuing system. You can lay a complaint about tampering with mail or theft. A reference number is assigned.
l Telkom 0800 110 830. Answered after four rings. If you want to complain about technicians who demand backhanders, you must provide their registration numbers, names, vehicle and details of the misdemeanor. A reference number will be assigned.
ENDS
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