Scopa dare not relax its vigilance against rampant state corruption
Talk of a New Dawn is encouraging, but parliament must not be lulled into thinking all is now well in the executive and it can go back to sleep
● In 2009, a public official made an astonishing remark after a standing committee on public accounts hearing. He said, “Coming to parliament is a waste of time for public officials because they have to listen to parliamentarians asking questions about complex issues they don’t understand.”
The official went on to complain about how he missed “an investment promotion” trip abroad as he was forced to come to parliament for three consecutive weeks. According to this official, accountability to parliament should have been paused until he returned from his trip.
In similarly contemptuous manner, a cabinet minister once complained that parliament’s insistence on senior public officials appearing before Scopa was tantamount to micromanaging her department. It was this minister’s view that Scopa and other committees were asking too much of her departmental officials and that oversight should be content with written submissions and not have to ask questions directly.
In an outrageous act of irony, the same ministers and officials eagerly await parliamentary approval of their departmental budgets, yet accountability for the expenditure of such budgets is not eagerly embraced.
Parliament has tolerated this behaviour for a long time, partly because of patronage-based political machinery that has enabled public officials to get away with short-changing both the public and parliament.
In the past, we might have spared public officials and argued that accountability was a “foreign” virtue given the secrecy under which the apartheid regime operated, but in an environment of intense corruption it would be careless of Scopa to take that route.
It is no secret that public officials dislike the negative exposure when Scopa reveals their delinquency in managing public resources.
It must be said there are public officials who take their accountability to Scopa seriously. Some even risk political chastisement by disclosing details that implicate their political principals.
While oversight and accountability are inherently meant to expose wrongdoing, Scopa also provides the opportunity to recognise exemplary public service practices.
We have celebrated instances where public officials diligently demonstrated administrative acumen in managing public funds.
Since October we have held numerous public hearings with state institutions, national departments and municipalities. We have also undertaken oversight visits to various state institutions to gain first-hand information on the claims made by public officials in our meetings. These initiatives are aimed at advancing good governance, administration and consequence management in the public service.
During our break from oversight work, which recommences in August, we will vigorously continue to pursue corruption and maladministration.
We hope to re-establish faith in the oversight system that for too long has not lived up to expectations. This will go a long way towards restoring the dignity of parliament. We are encouraged by the spirit shown in other parliamentary committees that are holding the executive accountable. This augurs well for the development of South Africa. While the task ahead remains challenging, the pockets of excellence that have emerged from various committees during this term of parliament ought to be replicated and supported.
As we march towards the end of this term, our experience has shown us that financial imprecision in the public sector system is no longer a rudderless act of incompetence by public servants, but rather a systematic process of undermining government processes through corruption.
We have noted shocking incidents of callousness by political leadership in meddling with the administration. If anyone thinks the South African Social Security Agency/Cash Paymaster Services debacle and the corruption at the Department of Water and Sanitation were merely acts of negligence by officials, they must think again.
These are signs of a system that needs to be closely protected from those who are meant to provide stewardship over it. Parliament needs to collaborate with other sectors of society in calling for increased accountability. Legal instruments are needed to enforce the recommendations of parliament. It is vital to entrench a culture of consequences in the public service through law enforcement agencies such as the NPA, the Special Investigating Unit and the Hawks.
We are encouraged by the unfolding amendment of the Public Audit Act, which seeks to provide the auditor-general with additional enforcement powers where there are explicit incidents of recklessness in managing public funds. These amendments will send a strong signal to rogue elements within our public sector’s financial system that the government is taking consequences seriously.
The anticorruption rhetoric spurred by the “Thuma Mina” drive is important, but political will becomes a serious undertaking that requires close examination. Scopa will not rest until we are certain that the prevailing political will is not artificial, for we have seen in the past that political will is most enduring when it is institutionalised and not dependent on the personality and intentions of a particular person or campaign.
It is Scopa’s view that political will is most effective when it is inclusive, incorporating the interests of a wide range of constituencies — hence our call for parliament to creatively open space for whistleblowers in the oversight committee system to deal with day-to-day incidents of corruption. Citizens bear the heavy economic and social costs of corruption; this is why they look to parliament, the people they have elected, to set the outline of law and oversee its implementation.
We shall not evade our national duty. Our collective political resolve needs to be elevated now more than ever.