“We want to help them set up government structures around ethics. There needs to be a committee that provides oversight. There needs to be someone to manage ethics.”

“They have a very strong integrity management system which has a unit in the Office of the Premier. We have quarterly meetings with the Office of the Premier and provincial CoGTA to bring them up to speed on the work that has been done and they assist us where there are blockages. Through our constant engagements they also identify their needs,” he said.

Chief Risk Officer at Merafong Local Municipality Evelyn Segakweng-Diale said the partnership with the Ethics Institute has a positive impact because initially the municipality did not have the capacity to execute training and campaigns on promoting ethics management.

“The institute came in with a budget and capacity to do the training and campaigns,” said Segakweng-Diale, who is also the ethics champion and officer.

She said that the information shared by the Ethics Institute has helped to improve the municipality’s work.

“When it comes to fighting corruption, we were more reactive than proactive in the past. We would wait for an incident to happen then react to that, but now we engage regularly with councillors and officials on how to best protect assets of the municipality and to deal with issues of promoting integrity and respecting clients,” said Segakweng-Diale.

A winning project

The Gauteng Municipal Integrity Project won the gold award in the Integrity Category of the Premier’s Service Excellence Awards this year.

“A lot of people from the municipalities have put in a lot of hard work, it is not just the Ethics Institute. It is important to note that the award is for the project and not for the Ethics Institute. It is for all the role players.We have just started the fourth year of the project. It is coming to an end and we have made good progress,” he said.