It is clear many South Africans, including some in the African National Congress, appear to think their new democracy gives them the freedom to engage in corrupt practices, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Writing in the ANC’s online publication, ANC Today, he said the party, government and people are deeply concerned about the incidence of corruption in South Africa.
”This concern arises from the fact that corruption in the public sector means theft of resources that belong to the people.
”In the private sector, it deprives the economy of resources that would be used to increase the national wealth, and thus create the means to meet the needs of the people,” he said.
Corruption in the public and private sectors therefore directly undermines the national effort to defeat poverty and underdevelopment.
In paying tribute to the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) on its 25th anniversary, Mbeki said auditors and accountants are relied on to determine whether the money flows point to wrongdoing of one kind or another.
This assumes they are people of integrity who will, at all times, respect the ethical imperatives fundamental to their profession.
It also assumes they will be inspired by a level of courage and commitment to the public good, obliging them to report any corruption they might unearth, to enable law-enforcement authorities to take the necessary action to punish the corrupt.
However, the spectacular collapse of major companies around the world, including the Masterbond companies in South Africa, have raised serious doubts about the commitment of many accountants to the ethical standards expected of them.
It would be grossly unjust and unacceptable to accuse or suspect all or even the majority of the members of Saica and the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa (Abasa) of unethical practices.
”However, our accountants will have to accept that the question will be asked every day, whether our accountants are acting to facilitate corrupt practice or are engaged in the critically important struggle to defeat corruption.
”This is because it is now patently clear that a significant number of our people seem to have come to the conclusion that the liberty we achieved in 1994, at great cost in human lives, affords them the freedom to engage in corrupt practice, illegally to enrich themselves by stealing from the public and from corporate shareholders,” Mbeki said.
Particularly disturbing in this regard is the phenomenon manifesting itself of some people abusing membership of the organisations of the people, including the ANC, as a stepladder to positions of power; power they then use corruptly to accumulate riches for themselves, rather than to serve the people of South Africa.
”All of us know that we are afflicted by the phenomenon of people who, while pretending to be comrades, are individuals driven by the same psychology and value system described by [financier] George Soros.
”These are our compatriots who have elevated self-interest to a moral principle, relying on money as a criterion of value.
”As we fight the pervasive cancer of corruption, which is representative of a society that has lost its anchor, we will continue to rely on our accountants to help our country and people to sustain the permanent struggle against corruption,” Mbeki said. — Sapa