Anti-corruption alliance launched

The quest by the South African government to fight fraud and corruption in both the public and private sectors is yielding positive results.

These government efforts have attracted the interests of German and Swiss governments, which have pledged to financially support one of the programmes that seeks to root out corruption in the procurement and supply chain management system within the public sector.

Called the Transparency, Integrity and Accountability Programme (TIP), the project was established in October 2021 by South African government’s Anti-Corruption Task Team (ACTT) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, also known as GIZ. Germany has contributed eight million euros to the TIP project while Switzerland has co-financed the project with two-and-a-half million euros through Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs (SECO).

On 20 June 2022, the three partners in the TIP project formally launched the partnership agreement

in Pretoria at Statistics South Africa Auditorium. The launch served as an acknowledgement of the funding by GIZ and SECO. The keynote speakers at the launch were the Ambassador of Germany, Andreas Peschke, the Ambassador of Switzerland, Nicolas Bruehl and Deputy Director General (DDG) of the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), Henk Serfontein.

Serfontein thanked both the governments of Germany and Switzerland for supporting the South African government in its fight against fraud and corruption. He also emphasized that government’s commitment to fight corruption is detailed in priority one of the National Development Plan (NDP), which outlines a plan of creating an ethical and capable developmental state. One of the outcomes of assessing the achievement of this goal is tracking the trust level in government by members of the public. Over the years the country has witnessed dwindling trust in government due to rampant corruption in the public sector. This has compelled government to intensify its fight against corruption and the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS), an inclusive approach to create a South African society that is based on the values of integrity, transparency and accountability, and respect for the rule of law.

The TIP project has three supporting fields: active citizenry, institutional building and strategy implementation and multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) and alliances to implement the NACS. In supporting active citizenry, the TIP project aims to promote ethical leadership, enhance the whistleblower support system and strengthening communities to hold government accountable. The institutional building element of the TIP project includes developing a monitoring and evaluation framework in the implementation of the NACS, the communication strategy and supporting the whole of government coordination. The final leg of the TIP is the building of multi-stakeholder partnerships through establishing corruption reporting and whistleblowing, advocating for public procurement and building business integrity. All these supporting fields of the TIP project find expression in pillar 1 to 6 of the NACS.

The TIP project further supports anti-corruption bodies and bolsters integrity management in private companies. Therefore, the role players in the TIP project include government and non-state organisations. Government is represented by the DPME and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). The National Treasury is represented by the International Development Cooperation and Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO), Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD), Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), South African Human Research Council (SAHRC) and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). Non-state actors are represented by Corruption Watch, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), the National Business Initiative (NBI), academia, Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and Auditor General South Africa (AGSA).

The financial injection to the TIP project will ensure that all efforts of fighting corruption reap positive benefits and that those implicated in corrupt activities are brought to account for their actions. The citizens of this country should be encouraged by the recent reports of the cancellation of irregular contracts and tenders, arrests and prosecution of those who are allegedly implicated in state capture, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) procurement corruption and defrauding the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) earmarked for the TERS relief funds.