The Herald (South Africa)

State officials refusing to be screened

- Babalo Ndenze

STATE employees involved in the government’s multibilli­on-rand procuremen­t space are refusing to undergo security screening, State Security Minister Bongani Bongo and his director-general, Arthur Fraser, have told parliament.

Bongo and Fraser appeared before the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to explain why thousands of government officials and employees of state-owned companies dealing with supply chain management had not been vetted as a mechanism to tackle corruption.

This is despite a 2014 cabinet memo instructin­g the State Security Agency to vet all supply chain employees. Scopa wanted answers after it emerged last week that at Transnet alone‚ only 7% of about 700 supply chain management employees had been vetted.

Fraser said there were a few reasons why a lot of officials were not vetted.

He said in many instances state officials simply refused to be vetted.

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