Warnings Issued To Corrupt Public Servants

 Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, addressing the three day Good Governance conference which started in Pretoria on 12 October 2010, said that Government’s oversight bodies will not tolerate corruption in the public service. The purpose of the conference was to draw together the watchdog institutions such as the Auditor- General’s office, the Independent Complaints Directorate, the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) and the Independent Electoral Commission to prepare a framework for good governance in the public service.

The conference was to give attention to the role of the oversight bodies in promoting good governance and ensuring the work of the institutions work together in investigating allegations of corruption, maladministration and fraud.

"We seek to highlight the issue of good governance, its value in a constitutional democracy and the developmental state. Part of the objective is to mobilise the people as partners in holding the State accountable, ensuring that government upholds the constitution and the law at all times, delivering services that are responsive to all, regardless of differences , and that corruption is never tolerated "said Madonsela.

"Sometimes watchdog bodies have limited resources to investigate cases reported to them and this is the platform where we will discuss how far the mandate of each Institution goes to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and, when the institution doesn’t have a mandate to investigate a matter; they report it to an institution that does."
Public Service and Administration Minister, Richard Baloyi, speaking at the conference said government would not allow the state to be a "refuge" for "lazy" public servants and welcomed the conference’s initiative and said government had a responsibility to fight corruption.

Speaking at the 12th conference of the Association of Public Accounts Committees in Durban held on the same day Willie Hofmeyr, the head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) announced that government has set a target of 100 corruption convictions in the public sector by April 2014, where more than R5 Million in assets can be seized.
This will be achieved through the anti- corruption Task Team , a sub-committee of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster in accordance with the performance agreement signed by the Justice and Constitutional Department with President Jacob Zuma earlier in 2010.

Hofmeyr said the team would specifically target high priority investigations, where individuals illegally benefited, by more than R5 Million. The SIU would look at their assets and seize these, if they were worth more than R5 million.

He was confident that the target of 100 convictions would be reached. The target would include allegations of corruption in all government departments and proclamations made by the President to the SIU and the task team would include the Police, the Hawks, National Prosecuting Authority and the SIU.

Pieter Rautenbach