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Further developments in the arms procurement scandal An arms procurement scandal that goes to the heart of South Africa’s government continued to unravel in 2002–03, attracting widespread public attention. The chief whip of the ruling party was sentenced to four years in prison for accepting a bribe as part of the deal, and investigations were conducted into allegations that Deputy President Jacob Zuma had solicited a bribe (see ‘The politics of corruption in the arms trade: South Africa’s arms scandal and the Elf affair’, Chapter 4, page 59).
Legislation improving but implementation weak A major hurdle in South Africa’s fight against corruption in the past has been the lack of adequate legislative instruments to prosecute offenders. The Corruption Act of 1992 proved ineffective and was rarely invoked to formulate charges of bribery or corruption. New anti-corruption legislation that should remedy many weaknesses in the existing framework is currently being examined and should become law by early 2004. What it will not resolve, however, is the weakness of implementation. Legislative reform was a key component of the cabinet-endorsed Public Service National Anti-Corruption Strategy of 2002. As part of that strategy, a new Prevention of Corruption Bill was tabled for debate in parliament in April 2002. The bill follows the international trend of ‘unbundling’ crimes of corruption by defining and prohibiting specific practices. In this regard it is substantially based on the provisions of Nigeria’s Corruption Practices and Other Related Offences Act of 2000. Unlike South Africa’s 1992 legislation, the new bill recognises both the supply and demand side of corruption by reinstating the common law offence of bribery, with a maximum sentence of 15 years and/or a fine. Importantly, given corporate South Africa’s
engagement across the continent, the bill criminalises the bribery of foreign public officials abroad. The bill also places a duty on citizens to report instances of public corruption to the authorities, though this provision may face constitutional challenges given the state’s limited capacity to protect whistleblowers. The original draft has also been extended to include private-to-private corruption, and a procurement blacklisting mechanism is being drafted for inclusion. There were still limitations to the bill at this writing. Most significantly, it does not address nepotism or the private financing of political parties (see Box 2.1, ‘The challenge of achieving political equality in South Africa’, page 21). The African Union anti-corruption convention, adopted in July 2003, includes provisions on legislation governing the funding of political parties and may provide added impetus for the issue to be addressed at a national level. It was also not clear how the bill would facilitate whistleblowing.1 Whatever the final form of the legal text, however, the greatest limitation is likely to lie in the law’s implementation. A comprehensive review of South Africa’s fight against corruption, published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in April 2003, praised the proposed Prevention of Corruption Bill but warned that ‘there are serious weaknesses and shortcomings in the capacity and will of public sector bodies to implement and to comply with the laws’.2 The institutions responsible for implementation face decreasing budgets, pressure for rationalisation, increased caseloads and other resource constraints, and difficulties of transformation. The most pressing concern is the provinces, where 70 per cent of public officials work, anti-corruption policies are minimal and there are critical backlogs in resolving disciplinary cases (less than 10 per cent are given adequate attention). The government strategy includes: creating a minimum capacity to tackle corruption in all state departments; incorporating risk management systems, fraud prevention plans and professional and
Country reports SOUTH AFRICA
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