Independent civil society institute Corruption Watch embarked on its outreach to the public today, launching a website and SMS hotline to receive reports of corruption and posting an online pledge for people to sign rejecting corruption.
The website will be a repository of stories from the South African public; a secure portal for evidence-based whistle blowing activity and a resource for information about corrupt activities in South Africa.
“By gathering, interpreting and acting on information from the public, the media and other sources,” Director David Lewis said, “Corruption Watch will expose the corrupt and the misuse in particular of public money. We have formed this institution to enable citizens to report and confront public and private sector individuals abusing their power and position.”
The data collected by the organisation will be used to reveal ‘hotspots’ of corrupt activity around the country at municipal, provincial and national level. Where corruption is rife, Corruption Watch will seek partnerships with powerful organs of civil society to effect change.
“We want to help move the national conversation about corruption from resignation to action,” said Lewis.
Funded principally by donations from charitable foundations, Corruption Watch was initiated by Cosatu’s office bearers, who were receiving an increasing number of complaints about corruption from its membership and the general public. It is a non-profit organisation and the board is comprised of the following individuals: Bobby Godsell, Adila Hassim, David Lewis, Mary Metcalfe, Mavuso Msimang, Archbishop Ndungane, Kate O’Regan, Zwelinzima Vavi, and is chaired by Vuyiseka Dubula.
The website will be the main interface between the public and Corruption Watch, though it can be reached via SMS, twitter and facebook. Through social media, people can share their stories about all manner of corruption, including but not exclusive to bribery, kickbacks and graft; influence peddling and patronage; corruption in the work place where they’ve seen or been victims of favouritism, nepotism, ghost workers and illegitimate absenteeism. People may be able to report instances of bid-rigging, price-fixing, arbitrage and profiteering, cartels and collusion and tender and procurement irregularities.
The personal details of anyone reporting an incident will be kept confidential, but the information collected will be aggregated, enabling Corruption Watch to analyse the data, spot patterns and draw a ‘heat map’ of when and where corruption is occurring.
“Information from crowd-sourcing offers a clear understanding of what is happening on the ground,” said Lewis. “While we won’t be in a position to investigate each and every report, the combined knowledge of people coming to our site will provide us with a powerful tool to build alliances with other institutions and NGOs. Strengthening the scale and voice of civil society will help South Africans defeat corruption.”
From some of the aggregated information – and occasionally a personal story that is representative of an endemic form of corruption – Corruption Watch will initiate research, commission reports and compile sufficient documentation to refer matters to the appropriate investigative or prosecutorial authority, or engage in policy-based advocacy work.
“Our first campaign,” said Lewis, “is asking people to sign a pledge online, or via SMS, refusing to participate in corruption and, if they are civil servants, committing to treating public resources with respect.”
The public can tell Corruption Watch about their experiences and sign the pledge on the website (www.corruptionwatch.org.za). To SMS, send the text “BRIBE” to report corruption or, to sign the pledge, type “PLEDGE” plus your first and last names to the number 45142 (the SMS costs R1). People can also talk about it on facebook (CorruptionWatch) and twitter (@corruption_sa), or follow #corruptionwatch.
“We are all degraded and affronted by corruption. It threatens our institutions, service delivery, public trust and indeed our democracy. Together we can reject the abuse of public money, which so disproportionately affects the poor,” concluded Corruption Watch Chairperson Vuyiseka Dubula.
Source: Corruption Watch
Showing posts with label Mavuso Msimang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mavuso Msimang. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Thursday, March 11, 2010
'It was like climbing a greasy pole'
Exiting home affairs director general Mavuso Msimang has admitted that he failed to root out rampant corruption in his department during his three-year tenure as a turnaround specialist. "I didn't really get on top of corruption," Msimang (68) said in an interview this week. "It's a difficult one to crack because it requires a comprehensive approach that involves improved administration and information technology systems and a very cooperative public."
Msimang said the arrest and prosecution of more than 100 employees for corruption was of little comfort because the problem was far more widespread. "We've beefed up security measures, but my honest assessment is that we still have a long way to go."
The security of South African documents remained vulnerable, said Msimang, but moves were afoot to improve that. To cut identity fraud, the department launched a countrywide campaign to encourage birth registration, as this was the key to obtaining an ID. But Msimang was sceptical about the prospects of the success of what was intended as a two-year campaign. "The unfortunate thing is that we do not know where people are. Many are not born in hospitals," he said. There were also financial constraints, as well as a shortage of officials to drive the campaign. Msimang conceded that home affairs is "weak on the IT front", adding: "We use probably among the most sophisticated and expensive IT equipment, but home affairs doesn't have the IT skills required to run the system. And that means you're compromising your documents."Behind the skills shortage lie inadequate salaries, he said.
Another major project that came to a standstill was the introduction of smart-card IDs. The department cancelled a R5-billion tender to replace the green identity books after confidential information about the tender was leaked to the media from the State IT Agency (Sita). Msimang said it had later emerged that the department could not afford the smart cards in any event, because the funding was not included in the budget.
Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told Parliament this week that the department planned to make funds available for new ID cards in the next financial year. Smart cards have been in the pipeline for almost a decade and former president Thabo Mbeki announced in 2008 that a pilot project would be launched by the end of that year. Msimang said it would now take a minimum of a year to introduce them.
Msimang's endeavour was the second attempt at a turnaround strategy in home affairs -- the first, under former director general Barry Gilder, failed. Msimang said the shortage of expertise in the department largely explained why it had not met all its targets. Bureaucratic government procedures had frustrated his efforts to attract skills. "I accepted the job on condition that government would let me bring in people from outside and pay them market-related salaries. That wasn't done," he said. "You have to jump through so many hoops. "If it was a private company I would've resigned, but it's our government. I tried, but it was like climbing up a greased pole."
Pointing to his successes, he said that when he took office in 2007 it took about 140 days to get an ID book. By last December, the turnaround time was 27 days, or two weeks in some cases. Long queues at home affairs offices have been reduced as applicants can check the status of documents online or through call centres rather than visiting the branches. They also receive free text messages telling them when the document is ready for collection. Of his long-running battles with Parliament's home affairs committee, particularly its former chairperson, Patrick Chauke, Msimang said: "We were caught in a very difficult situation when Parliament began asserting itself over the executive. "Previously, ministers and senior government officials did not take Parliament seriously and MPs felt they couldn't discharge their oversight responsibilities."
Msimang believed, however, that some MPs had set out to rub him up the wrong way. "I thought some people were trying to push me around. "I expressed myself and that got me into trouble."
Source: Mail & Guardian
Msimang said the arrest and prosecution of more than 100 employees for corruption was of little comfort because the problem was far more widespread. "We've beefed up security measures, but my honest assessment is that we still have a long way to go."
The security of South African documents remained vulnerable, said Msimang, but moves were afoot to improve that. To cut identity fraud, the department launched a countrywide campaign to encourage birth registration, as this was the key to obtaining an ID. But Msimang was sceptical about the prospects of the success of what was intended as a two-year campaign. "The unfortunate thing is that we do not know where people are. Many are not born in hospitals," he said. There were also financial constraints, as well as a shortage of officials to drive the campaign. Msimang conceded that home affairs is "weak on the IT front", adding: "We use probably among the most sophisticated and expensive IT equipment, but home affairs doesn't have the IT skills required to run the system. And that means you're compromising your documents."Behind the skills shortage lie inadequate salaries, he said.
Another major project that came to a standstill was the introduction of smart-card IDs. The department cancelled a R5-billion tender to replace the green identity books after confidential information about the tender was leaked to the media from the State IT Agency (Sita). Msimang said it had later emerged that the department could not afford the smart cards in any event, because the funding was not included in the budget.
Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told Parliament this week that the department planned to make funds available for new ID cards in the next financial year. Smart cards have been in the pipeline for almost a decade and former president Thabo Mbeki announced in 2008 that a pilot project would be launched by the end of that year. Msimang said it would now take a minimum of a year to introduce them.
Msimang's endeavour was the second attempt at a turnaround strategy in home affairs -- the first, under former director general Barry Gilder, failed. Msimang said the shortage of expertise in the department largely explained why it had not met all its targets. Bureaucratic government procedures had frustrated his efforts to attract skills. "I accepted the job on condition that government would let me bring in people from outside and pay them market-related salaries. That wasn't done," he said. "You have to jump through so many hoops. "If it was a private company I would've resigned, but it's our government. I tried, but it was like climbing up a greased pole."
Pointing to his successes, he said that when he took office in 2007 it took about 140 days to get an ID book. By last December, the turnaround time was 27 days, or two weeks in some cases. Long queues at home affairs offices have been reduced as applicants can check the status of documents online or through call centres rather than visiting the branches. They also receive free text messages telling them when the document is ready for collection. Of his long-running battles with Parliament's home affairs committee, particularly its former chairperson, Patrick Chauke, Msimang said: "We were caught in a very difficult situation when Parliament began asserting itself over the executive. "Previously, ministers and senior government officials did not take Parliament seriously and MPs felt they couldn't discharge their oversight responsibilities."
Msimang believed, however, that some MPs had set out to rub him up the wrong way. "I thought some people were trying to push me around. "I expressed myself and that got me into trouble."
Source: Mail & Guardian
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