25 2.7.1 The Current Situation
2.11 Corruption in South Africa
With the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa a new democratic dispensation dawned, based on a constitution that has core values of openness, transparency and responsiveness (Rai & Johnson, 2014). The South African government has publicly committed itself to deal with issues of corruption, which has been substantially blamed on the legacy of the apartheid regimes (Heidenheimer &
Johnston, 2011). The South African government however, has not fully dealt with this phenomenon, as it has been found that South Africa has lost R700 billion to corruption over the last 20 years, since its democracy (Sibeko, 2015). In the 2014 CPI, South Africa ranks a disappointing 67 out of a possible 175 countries, with a dismal score of 44 out of 100. Even with the fall of the apartheid regime, corruption is still rife and active in democratic South Africa.
The difference between corruption in the apartheid era and during democracy is that the latter allows for greater detection of corrupt activities, allowing for the exposure and prosecution of corrupt acts (Hyslop, 2005). The media is flooded with numerous cases of government misappropriation and illicit acts but little is done to formulate measures to combat it. According to Ellero (2014), South Africans are immune to corruption and it is becoming the norm. Citizens and politicians alike, feel powerless and fearful to report on corruption, due to fear of being victimised. However, it is imperative that cases of corrupt activity are reported in order to ascertain the true extent of corruption in South Africa in order to develop specific combative measures.
2.11.1 History of Corruption in South Africa
What typifies the South African context is its historical legacy of apartheid. For the last 300 years South African has endured intense colonisation and racial discrimination (Hilliard and Wissink, 2001). Nearly every contemporary challenge faced by South Africa cannot be explained without reflecting on its past, as they are intertwined. According to Hyslop (2005), during the age of Paul Kruger corruption in the Transvaal was used as a means of propaganda; administrative corruption was noted as a downfall of the ruling party and a way to advocate a British takeover of the territory. The pro-imperial lobby in the Transvaal and Britain, showed the Boer regime as primitive and unable to provide the necessary support for the modernisation of the country during the gold discoveries in South Africa (Hyslop, 2005).
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In the late 1880s and 1890s however, Kruger made efforts to modernise. A civil organisation was formed under the leadership of Dr. Leyds, who brought well educated Dutch administrators to run the system. Kruger further developed economic policies that brought about rent-seeking opportunities within patronage networks, hoping that his supporters would benefit from such policies. One of his main policies granted concessions, specifically the right to manufacture or distribute certain category goods in the Transvaal. This usually went to entrepreneurs who were sympathetic to the regime (Hyslop, 2005).
Decades after the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910. Led by Jan Smuts, the main goal was to form a strong white controlled polity within the British Empire. During this period, corruption levels in the hierarchy of the senior bureaucracy seemed to have been low, even though the use of the pass system to control the movement of black labourers allowed for bribery between officials and workers (Hyslop, 2005). The victory of the National Party in 1948 introduced apartheid policies and indicated an administrative change (Hilliard and Wissink, 2001). The use of preferential funding for Afrikaner cultural and educational institutions, and the awarding of contracts to Afrikaner enterprises and other policies all favoured government supporters. However, even though the role of patronage was immense, there was little evidence of obvious corruption in the higher levels of bureaucracy.
Furthermore, legal fetishism that was the characteristic of the Afrikaner nationalist ideology of the time constrained corruption. However, the administration of racist legislation, specifically the pass laws, heightened corruption at the lower levels of bureaucracy (Van Vuuren, 2006).
From the 1980s onwards, there was a withdrawal from the harsh form of the Verwoerdian model of apartheid, in which the presence of the urban black population was accepted and an attempt was made to include coloured and Indian minorities into the white polity. However, corruption during this period began to increase in government administration and parastatals, especially in the Bantustans (Hyslop, 2005). There was also much confusion in the ideological vision that was present. The National Party leadership ethos changed from that of the service of the volk to that of the Swiss bank accounts. The Afrikaner rule was unable to constrain its followers and there was a rush for personal enrichment. This can be illustrated by the „Muldergate‟ scandal of the 1970s (Hyslop, 2005), whereby concealed funds were used to manipulate internal and external media‟s presentation of South Africa.
For example, the entrepreneur Louis Luyt used such funds to create a pro-government newspaper, The Citizen, but used some of the money to help his failing fertiliser company (Van Vuuren, 2006).
The mid-1980s saw the last endeavour to maintain white control through repression and the military.
By the end of the decade this attempt had collapsed and under the leadership of FW De Klerk of the National Party negotiations for political transition began. It was at this time that corruption at the top levels of administration increased significantly. Once the fall of white rule was evident, there was
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haste to attain as much of the spoils as possible before the curtain came down on apartheid (Hyslop, 2005).
Corruption was not only evident in the apartheid regime, but was also present in the political struggle carried out by African National Congress (ANC) aligned organisations during the 1980s. Foreign donors began to put money into the hands of trusted resistance figures to aid the struggle. However, proper records of this money were not kept, and some leaders did not honour the trust that was placed upon them (Hyslop, 2005). There was also a political culture that developed in the ANC, that of organisational loyalty, which has been further carried into the post-apartheid government. Such loyalties make it problematic for acts of corruption by the old comrades, to be publicly denounced by the ANC (Hyslop, 2005).
With the fall of apartheid in 1994, the ANC government inherited a divided South Africa, characterised by high crime rates, extreme poverty, high levels of unemployment and the dubious title of being the most unequal society in the world (Hilliard and Wissink, 2001). According to Hyslop (2005), when looking at the old apartheid regime and its leadership, the new democratic regime has just exacerbated old forms of corruption and created new ones. A small black élite was benefiting from the new opportunities, while the majority were still largely disadvantaged (Ellero, 2015).
2.11.2 South African Anti-Corruption Initiatives
There are a number of international treaties that have been signed and anti-corruption agencies have been established in South Africa to curb and prevent corruption. According to Majila et al., (2014) South Africa has formulated and promulgated legislation that is regarded as an international example of good practice and has developed agencies for the purpose of combating corruption. However, the effectiveness of these anti-corruption measures has been questionable. Overall, the challenge lies in the implementation of South Africa‟s anti-corruption legislation, which, in essence has proven to be ineffective (Majila et al., 2014). South Africa has ratified four main international and regional treaties these are the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and Corruption (2005), the OECD Anti-bribery Convention (2007), the AU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Corruption (2005) and the SADC Protocol against Corruption (2001) (Nicholls et al., 2011; Boersma, 2012). All four of these treaties require the South African government to institute legislation to take aggressive action to address corruption.
In addition to the international conventions and treaties, there are also a number of anti-corruption agencies to combat corruption. The National Development Plan refers to the use of a multi-agency corruption system for combating corruption in South Africa. Table 2.5 outlines some of the anti- corruption agencies in South Africa.