Address by MEC Barbara Creecy on behalf of Premier David Makhura at the 2016 International Anti-Corruption Day

Programme Director, Professor D Singh

Professor M. Makhanya Vice Chancellor and Principal of UNISA UNDOC Regional

Representatives for Southern Africa, Ms Zhuidyz Akisheva

Honourable Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency other Ministers here present

Your Excellences, members of the diplomatic corps

Leaders of Local Government here present

Acting Chairperson of the Public Service Commission, Mr Ben Mthembu

Dr D. Lewis, from Corruption Watch Senior managers in government Members of the Academia

Representatives of civil society organisations

Ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for affording us the opportunity to address this important occasion marking the International Anti-Corruption Day. On this day we join millions across the globe in taking a firm and united stand against corruption.

We are reaffirming our commitment to ending deceit and dishonesty – both in the public and private sector- that undermine global development efforts.

We are further here to affirm our commitment to realizing the purpose of the convention which is to;

Promote and strengthen measures to prevent and combat corruption more efficiently and effectively;

Promote, facilitate and support international cooperation and technical assistance in the prevention of and fight against corruption, including in asset recovery and

Promote integrity, accountability and proper management of public affair and public property.

Speaking on corruption, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, and one of our Continent’s elder statesmen; His Excellency Kofi Annan had this to say; “Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies.

It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violation of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life, and allows organised crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to thrive.”

He went on to say; (This evil phenomenon is found in all countries, big and small, rich and poor, but it is in the developing world that its effects are most destructive. Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, and discouraging foreign investment and aid.

Corruption is a key element in economic underperformance and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development.”

Ladies and Gentlemen; as we meet here today to recommit to winning the war on corruption, let us recall that according to the United Nations; every year across the world more than USD 1 trillion is paid in bribes, while an estimated USD 2.6 trillion is stolen annually through corruption – a sum equivalent to more than 5% of global GOP.

In addition, the panel on illicit financial flows from Africa, found that, “Africa is losing at least more than US$50Billion annually to illegal transactions”.

It is also estimated that the continent has lost up to US$1-trillion in illicit financial outflows over the past fifty years. This is more concerning because it happened after the first country, Ghana, gained in 1957.

It is also worth noting that the panel on illicit financial flows also found that; “Corruption remains a matter of major concern despite the global and regional attention that resulted in the adoption of the UN Convention against Corruption and the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combatting Corruption and …Corruption in the form of abuse of entrusted power for private benefit in both the public and private sectors thus remains an issue of continuing concern.”

Of particular concern to us is that in developing countries, funds lost to corruption are estimated at 10 times the amount of official development assistance.

This confirms that Corruption is one of the biggest impediments to achieving development, building inclusive economies and cities can contribute towards the growth and the uplifment of citizens and indeed the Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2063 and with regards to our country the NDP, Vision 2030.

Ladies and Gentlemen it is evident that corruption continues to impact negatively on Africa’s development. In our considered view one of the urgent task is to develop ethical leadership and as called upon by the UN Convention on corruption, we must promote integrity, accountability and proper management of public affairs and property.

The other central and urgent task is to build strong institutions that are not dependent the whims of people or on who is in leadership. Such institutions must live beyond leaders and personalities.

It is for this reason that in South Africa we have adopted a Constitution that has checks and balances, because without such we are likely to allow for corruption and unethical leadership to impede our agenda to build a prosperous nation.

The mainstay of today is not a talk show but in our view a concrete and firm commitment on our part to work with the rest of society and development partners to finding lasting solution to the epidemic of corruption.

To further illustrate the negative impact of corruption, the Gauteng City Region Observatory’s 2015 Quality of Life Survey, found that an overwhelming 82% of respondents said corruption is the main threat to South Africa’s democracy.

We also know that corruption and perceptions of corruption are among the leading motives for protests, including violent protests by citizens.

This has been evident in our engagements with communities through our Ntirhisano outreach community programme, the people of Gauteng have raised serious concerns about corruption in government procurement processes. They made it clear to us that there can be no compromise on the need for a clean, accountable, transparent and responsive government. People want accountability and transparency.

To them these are non-negotiable and we agree with the people.

We agree with people because faced with the tragic reality of corruption and its consequences, humanity has a responsibility to speak out and act firmly against those who use positions of power, trust or influence, both in the private and public sector, for dishonest gain.

Accordingly, we wish to restate our view is that public resources, in particular, must be used for the common good and not to advance personal or private interests.

Lasies and Gentlemen, political will and determination to win the war against corruption cannot be measured in the words we utter. It must be demonstrated in the practical and preventive measures we put in place to promote clean governance, integrity and openness.

In making the point about the need for political will in the fight against corruption, our country’s development blue print; the National Development Plan, Vision 2030 has the following to say; “Political will is essential to combat the scourge of corruption. .. In addition to political will, corruption has to be fought on three fronts: deterrence, prevention and education.

Ladies and Gentlemen; as a demonstration of our political will and determination to act decisively against corruption, during my inaugural State of the Province Address in June 2014, I outlined a programme to transform, modernise and reindustrialise the Gauteng City Region.

I made an explicit commitment to the citizens of Gauteng that we will build an activist, responsive, clean, accountable and efficient government and that we will enhance integrity across all government departments and institutions as well as in our decision making processes.

I said specifically that it is not enough to talk about fighting corruption, but that we have to demonstrate, in action, that corruption will not be tolerated. We need to do everything necessary to restore the citizen’s confidence in the processes and decisions of our government.

I announced that we will introduce new measures to strengthen the integrity of our public institutions and processes so that fraud and corruption are prevented and detected early in the value chain to prevent losses.

We also committed that we shall work closely with law enforcement agencies, the Public Service Commission, the Integrity Commissioner of the Legislature, Chapter 9 and 10 institutions, as well as civil society to strengthen clean government and to enhance the integrity of our decisions and processes.

In taking forward the realisation of our commitemnts in November of 2014, we convened the Gauteng City Region Anti-Corruption Summit. We used that occasion to reiterate our commitment to a clean, transparent and corruption free government. We declared boldly that corruption is a crime against the poor! It robs them of much needed basic services!

At the Summit we announced new measures that we will be implementing to strength the fight against fraud and corruption. These are;

Strengthening anti-corruption units and setting up integrity management offices across government departments;

Introducing greater transparency, greater public scrutiny and greater public accountability in the tendering processes;

Increasing our capacity to monitor the pricing of materials, goods and other items procured by government;

Black-listing, publicly exposing and prosecuting all businesses that are involved in acts of bribery and corruption;

Strengthening civilian oversight on the law enforcement agencies with a specific focus on stemming out corruption and removing from these important institutions corrupt officers.

Ladies and gentlemen, on Tuesday this week when I presented the Third Political Report of the provincial administration, I have the honour to lead, I took the opportunity to reiterate our unflinching determination to winning the war on corruption and promoting impeccable integrity, transparency and accountability in all the decision-making processes of our government.

I indicated that one of the most powerful instruments in fighting corruption is to ensure transparency in public procurement. This is particularly important because all over the world, the tender or procurement process is an avenue through which state corruption, corporate and state capture takes place.

The stakes are high. For instance in South Africa, government’s procurement budget for goods and services is estimated to be over R500 billion annually. The Gauteng provincial government spends more than R47 billion on procurement annually. All of this excludes procurement spend by municipalities.

In order to enhance the integrity and transparency of our public procurement systems and decisions, we have now expanded the Open Tender Process from two departments, last year, to cover all our fifteen departments.

We are also pleased to announce that all our Municipalities are now beginning to embrace and implement the open tender system.

Currently 72 projects worth R10 billion have been awarded using the Open Tender System. We are very proud of the fact that Gauteng is the leader in promoting open government principles. This approach has received public commendation from civil society, business and government leaders.

We have now taken this intervention a step further in that in the next financial year, we will table a bill to ensure that the Open Tender System is put into legislation! We are serious about governing in an open and transparent manner! In particular we are intervening to make it impossible for public procurement processes to be flouted to favour, personal and private interest- friends or family.

To further strengthen the fight against corruption, the Executive Council has approved a strict regime of anti-corruption and integrity guidelines that will ensure that we have clean governance and administration.

Among the measures we will put in place is the appointment of a civil society-led Integrity Promotion and Anti-Corruption Advisory Committee which will be chaired by a retired judge. The role of the Committee will be to vigorously enforce the guidelines and promote clean governance in our province. This Committee will help us sustain the trajectory of clean governance and ethical leadership at every level of our administration.

Furthermore and as an unequivocal demonstration of our commitment to clean government, we have instituted disciplinary proceedings against

125 officials who were involved in financial misconduct, including Heads of Department. To date, two Heads of Department have been dismissed for serious acts of misconduct, including removing an MEC because of meddling into the affairs of the administration.

We are acting harshly against maladministration because it robs the people of their right to receive quality services from government. Our actions include recovery of assets and monies stole from the people. This also includes working with law enforcement agencies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, pointing to the progress we are making in improving accountability and the management of public funds is that for the 2015/16 audit cycle, 60% of the provincial governments departments received a clean audit, while the remainder of the 40% got unqualified audits with matters.

We are pleased that we have totally eliminated adverse findings and disclaimers from our province. We are indeed pushing forward towards our goal of making 100% clean audits a norm in Gauteng.

Going forward we will continue to act firmly without favour, fear or prejudice in dealing decisively with corruption as well as in enhancing accountability and integrity in the Gauteng government. We will also continue working with civil society to permanently break the back of corruption.

For instance we are working well with Corruption Watch in preventing and responding comprehensively to corruption in our province.

Ladies and Gentlemen; corruption has no place in our systems of government and in society as a whole. The corrupt have nowhere to hide. Our forward march towards a clean, corruption-free government is now unstoppable.

We must do so driven by a commitment to serve our people with integrity and transparency.

Thank you.

Source: Government of South Africa