Corruption is a scourge of development in Africa, Business Unity South Africa’s Cas Coovadia told the second national anti-corruption conference in Pretoria on Tuesday.
It costs the continent in lost resources, investment, decision-making and public sentiment, he told hundreds of delegates from business, government and civil society.
Corruption was the top issue identified in 1999 by a selection of European Union and United States companies as a critical deterrent to investment.
As such, it could have a tremendous impact on social development, Coovadia said.
”As Africa, we should be concern about our continent and should be identifying problems on the continent so we can address them,” he said.
Recommitting business to play a role in stamping out all pervasive corruption, Coovadia expressed his belief that the national anti-corruption forum — which is hosting the summit — is the right forum for a coordinated attack.
What is needed, however, is an honest and frank assessment of its strengths and weaknesses.
President Thabo Mbeki earlier said South Africa has to remain vigilant against new manifestations of corruption.
In his opening address to the conference, Mbeki added that South Africa’s law-enforcement capacity and legislative framework have to keep ahead of such new developments.
Addressing the conference at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s conference centre, he said the country has to continue to strengthen capacity in anti-corruption programmes and improve on the performance of the criminal justice system.
”All of us know that those intent on committing crime will continuously seek new ways and means to beat the law-enforcement system,” he told government, business and civil society representatives.
The new Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act contains additional tools to fight corruption, including the encouragement of the public to record corruption and other crimes to the police and the establishment of a register of businesses that commit corrupt acts, especially in government procurement.
It remains a challenge to mobilise sources to prevent corruption and improve awareness and education programmes, said Mbeki.
Another challenge for the summit was to evaluate whether the sectoral collaboration anti-corruption model adopted for South Africa in 1999 was working as it should — and if not, what was needed to improve it.
The summit further needed to assess the efficacy of the national anti-corruption forum, he said.
”To be effective in its efforts to raise awareness, prevent and fight corruption, a mechanism of this nature needs to have a deliberate plan of work, with defined responsibilities and accountability arrangements,” said Mbeki.
”As we know, corruption occurs in all sectors of society. The perpetrators, those corrupting and those corrupted, are equally guilty.
”While we tend to concentrate on corruption of high-value transactions and the dealing of the upper echelons of society, ordinary people are the most vulnerable to corruption in the processes of accessing services and infrastructure such as government grants, water, electricity, land and housing.”
This also applies to those seeking employment or workers unable to gain promotion because of corruption of their supervisors, said Mbeki.
”We have a particular responsibility to protect the poor and the weak from the corrupt practices of those in powerful positions,” he said.
Mbeki pointed out that at times corruption is a ”handy label” used arbitrarily by commentators, politicians, media and those who have ”one or another axe to grind”.
He said the summit needs to understand why corruption levels are often measured on perceptions and why the media correctly report on the incidents of corruption but not on steps taken to prevent and combat corruption.
”It is important to answer these and other related questions to help us deal with the real cases and causes of corruption and not perceptions.
”Those answers will help us the better to evaluate the progress, or lack thereof, of our work in preventing and combating corruption,” said Mbeki. — Sapa