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Civil society submits to Zondo inquiry its ‘Agenda for Action’ to tackle root cause of corruption

Civil society submits to Zondo inquiry its ‘Agenda for Action’ to tackle root cause of corruption
Stack of South African Rand. Photo: Adobe Stock

Civil society organisations have been making submissions to the Zondo Commission for the past year. The Civil Society Working Group publicly launched a joint statement that was presented to the commission this week. It summarises their recommended strategies to ensure that State Capture does not continue. They hope their evidence-based suggestions will bolster the findings of the commission and provide an ‘Agenda for Action’.

The Civil Society Working Group’s joint statement is based on the premise that the fight against State Capture and corruption is intricately intertwined with the fight against inequality and poverty.

They hope this document, a summary of 15 recommendation documents put together by the group’s members, will bolster the commission’s findings by providing an evidence-based, concrete roadmap for how to reform the public and private sector systems which allowed for state capture to take place. 

The group was established in November 2018 and Open Secrets is the secretariat and convener of the group. The Open Society Foundation funded the working group’s meetings, the publication of the report and the advocacy work around the people’s hearing. 

Members, who have consulted with one another and the public while compiling their submissions over several months, include Black Sash, Equal Education, Treatment Action Campaign, Right to Know Campaign, Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and the Platform to Protect Whistle-blowers in Africa.

“The reality is that South Africa’s struggle for social justice and human rights will not be realised if those who loot with impunity, in the public and private sector, remain unaccountable,” said Zen Mathe, a researcher for Open Secrets. 

“That is why this group of civil society organisations got together around the Zondo Commission and that is why we found the effort and the strength and encouragement to continue this work throughout last year to make evidence-based submissions into State Capture.”

The strategies are designed to tackle the root, not the symptom of the problem. These reforms will ensure the protection of fundamental rights and the interests of the public.

They hope other institutions, such as criminal justice agencies and parliament, can take their recommendations on board too. They argue that holding the corrupt to account is a long-term, multi-stakeholder effort.

Their broadest call is for all those – whether in public or private sectors – to be held to account for their role in State Capture. This can only happen, they argue, if an interim report is released and if the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks are given the additional funding they need to prosecute the powerful.

Their recommendations focus on five key areas:

  • Strengthening and building the capacity of criminal justice agencies; 
  • Holding enablers of State Capture to account; 
  • Improving the financial accountability of political parties through amended regulations; 
  • Addressing the endemic nature of corruption in state-owned enterprises (SOEs); and 
  • Addressing the impact of corruption and how it undermines the fundamental rights of vulnerable groups. 

The submission provides numerous, detailed suggestions on how to practically tackle the systemic failures in these areas.

Their recommendations centred on bettering transparency and accountability by making financial and performance assessment records available to the public as well as establishing independent panels to appoint SOE boards, heads of criminal justice agencies and so forth.

It also recommended specific legal reforms in all areas to close the loopholes that were manipulated to siphon off funds. 

In addition, private professionals such as bankers, lawyers accountants should be prosecuted for their role in enabling looting. They must return the money they earned from enabling State Capture, and this will go into a public fund. Professional bodies should take responsibility for their failure in oversight, the submission contends.

The working group calls on the commission, as well as the media, to take these professionals from the margins of the narrative of State Capture to its very centre where they ought to be.

They suggest that a professional public service should be developed to ensure that public servants remain independent and impartial. 

Whistle-blowers need a clearer, safer way to disclose information and how this process workers needs to be explained to the public to encourage them to come forward. They also need to be protected from the financial fallout which often comes in the wake of reporting wrongdoing.

Political parties must be financially accountable and transparent if there is hope for the state to ever be so. Therefore, political party funding regulations need to be reformed to make it easier for the public to see all donations received and spent. Those who do not comply should be prosecuted.

They also call on the commission to release an interim report to the public with no reductions and to ensure that the final report is published in its full form too. 

It must include the impact of State Capture on the real lives of South Africans.

“The hearings on the impact of State Capture must change from the narrative of shenanigans by politicians that hope to derail the proceedings of the commission, but should focus on the real impact of State Capture,” said Mathe.

“That is where we also call on the media to tell the story of the perpetrators but it is also important to tell the stories of those of us, ordinary South Africans, who suffer and bear the brunt of the impact of State Capture.”

The working group will now wait for a receipt from the commission indicating that they received the submission. The working group has told the commission that they are available to be called upon if the commission requires further elaboration on their points.

However, the agenda is not just a roadmap for the commission and civil society. “We hope this Agenda for Action sends a strong signal to parliamentarians of the kind of work they need to be doing and oversight they need to give so that it’s not only up to Judge Zondo and his colleagues to take this forward,” said Hennie van Vuuren, the director of Open Secrets.

Going forward, they will use the document to inform their own campaigns.

They are all working on distributing the submission document to the public online via social media and their own organisations’ websites. The digital document will include links to videos from the peoples’ hearings. MC

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