TRENDS RELATING TO CORRUPTION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

1. TRENDS RELATING TO CORRUPTION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration 7 November 2012

2. CONTENTS OF THIS PRESENTATION • Key message • Historical perspective on ethics in the South African public service • The current situation • A closer look at Financial Disclosures, the National Anti-Corruption Hotline • Reporting on Financial Misconduct and the management of discipline • Major challenges • Concluding remarks and recommendations

3. KEY MESSAGES • Ensuring ethical professional conduct in the post-apartheid Public Service is a major challenge. • Because the Black population was historically prevented from accumulating wealth legitimately, many people (especially aspirant entrepreneurs) now rely on the State for access. • Our material conditions (intense poverty, unemployment and systemic, structural inequality) exacerbate the current challenges. • Mechanisms to improve ethics are in place but these urgently need deepening and strengthening through rigorous implementation.

4. ETHICS IN THE SA PUBLIC SERVICE: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE • As a result of our history of racist subjugation and dispossession, the Black and particularly African population was excluded from access to markets and condemned to lives of poverty. • In the post-apartheid context, there is a great reliance on the State, not only for welfare but also for contracts and patronage.

5. ETHICS IN THE SA PUBLIC SERVICE: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE • The post-apartheid public service was constructed out of the various apartheid administrations • Apartheid’s bureaucratic authoritarian state was fundamentally immoral; explicitly organised around the delivery of a repugnant social project and shrouded in secrecy. • Changing this institutional culture is a long term endeavour, still only partly addressed.

6. ETHICS IN THE SA PUBLIC SERVICE: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE • One of the consequences of our troubled history is the growth in comprador, parasitic forms of accumulation that currently plague the procurement of goods and services by the State. • As a result, supply chain management (for example) has become a very strategic and sensitive area of public administration.

7. THE CURRENT SITUATION • Government has developed a broad suite of integrity-promoting instruments and processes. The mechanisms used to promote professional ethics include the following: • A number of progressive laws and policies (including the PFMA; PAIA; PAJA; PDA; PRECCA) • A Code of Conduct • A Financial Disclosures Framework • Dedicated anti-corruption agencies (including the PSC, the PP and others) and inter-agency cooperation • Requirements that Departments have anti-corruption strategies, forums, capacity, data-bases and investigative capacity • Whistle blowers protection • National Anti-Corruption Hotline

8. THE CURRENT SITUATION • In order to assess the extent to which the Public Service implements the various integrity promoting instruments, the PSC undertakes on-going research in provinces, looking at their performance against certain indicators. • Aspects of the findings from five studies done on the “state of professional ethics” in the following provinces is presented below: • Free-State (2006) • KwaZulu-Natal (2007) • Limpopo (2008) • Western Cape (2009) • North-West (2010)

9. THE CURRENT SITUATION • PSC research indicates that: • Development of anti-corruption strategies is uneven in departments. • Some provinces only have draft anti-corruption strategies. • Very few departments have standardized investigative procedures in place or received training in the area of investigation. • Promotion of the Code of Conduct for the Public Service is inconsistent. • Many officials do not possess a copy of the Code either. • The consequences for non-performance in terms of the various mechanisms are inadequate.

10. THE CURRENT SITUATION • The same PSC research also shows that: • Systematic monitoring of corruption is poor: only 50% of departments have data-bases on corruption. • Most departments have not signed protocols with specialist agencies to assist with complex syndicated crime. • Few departments comply with 100% filing of financial disclosures to the PSC by the due date of 31 May each year. • Minimum Anti-corruption capabilities are not put in place and there is insufficient resourcing at a personnel and budgetary level.

11. A CLOSER LOOK: FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES • The PSC’s analysis indicates that doing business with the State is a key strategic area for consideration so we closely monitor adherence to the Financial Disclosures framework. • Need to manage potential conflicts that the senior managers may have between their private business interests and their official responsibilities.

12. FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES COMPLIANCE RATE

13. A CLOSER LOOK: FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES • Scrutiny of financial disclosures for the 2010/11 financial year in selected departments: • Public servants, particularly SMS members and officials in SCM, should be prohibited from doing business with Government.

14. A CLOSER LOOK: NATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION HOTLINE • The National Anti-Corruption Hotline (0800 701 701) was established in September 2004 for reporting corruption in the Public Service and is managed by the PSC.

15. NACH FEEDBACK AND CLOSED CASES

16. REPORTING ON FINANCIAL MISCONDUCT • The PFMA, read with the Treasury Regulations, require national and provincial departments to report on finalized financial misconduct cases to the PSC. • Financial misconduct is under-reported, and there has been a decline in the number of cases, while the cost of financial misconduct has increased.

17. REPORTING ON FINANCIAL MISCONDUCT • It is worrying that over the years there has been a steady increase in the number of SMS members charged with financial misconduct

18. REPORTING ON FINANCIAL MISCONDUCT • Departments have consistently failed to demonstrate commitment by instituting criminal charges where appropriate (2010/11).

19. MANAGEMENT OF DISCIPLINE • Discipline is not managed effectively, due to inadequate capacity to chair disciplinary hearings and represent departments. This results in long periods of precautionary suspension. • In the 2010/11 financial year, a total of 77 national and provincial departments reported on cases of precautionary suspensions. Of these departments, only 26% of departments maintained an average of 60 days and below for employees to be on precautionary suspension.

20. MAJOR CHALLENGES 1: Building leadership that is: • Exemplary • Oriented towards the public interest • Inspirational • Authoritative • Innovative

21. MAJOR CHALLENGES 2: • While black South Africans continue to encounter such severe barriers to entry into the economy, it will remain rational to make use of the few entry points available to them, key amongst which at this point remains the state. • Restructuring of the South African economy and the creation of multiple legitimate opportunities for decent work and economic advancement is a priority for ethical and practical reasons... The state must intervene because market forces on their own cannot solve these challenges

22. MAJOR CHALLENGES 3 • Ensuring professional ethics in the public service is an ongoing priority but requires dedicated capacity… and so resources are needed. • In a context of acute inequality and severe poverty, and the need to develop comprehensive government programmes to address these, making a persuasive claim for such resources is challenging.

23. CONCLUDING REMARKS • The public service has developed a range of mechanisms, processes and practices that address the causes and opportunities for corruption. • Evidence collected by the PSC does not emphatically and undeniably prove that corruption (neither its incidence or the value of what is lost) has increased. • Implementation of these mechanisms, processes and practices are a key challenge and raise fundamental questions about the approach taken by the state to its governance and administration, which is highly decentralised and perhaps inappropriately regulated. • The need for rigorous and empirical research into corruption is the only clear conclusion: greater clarity on the incidence of corruption and the practices through which it is committed is needed. • What is clear is that the perpetrators of corruption are increasingly at a more senior level and this highlights the need for better, more ethical leadership.

24. PSC RECOMMENDATIONS • Within the constraints of the current public administration approach, specific areas for strengthening are: • Promotion of the Code of Conduct • Risk assessments and the development of tailor-made anti-corruption strategies • Development and implementation of internal policies on whistleblowing and access to information • Commitment to address valid complaints and promotion of a culture of reporting • Ensuring sufficient investigative capacity is in place • Resolution of allegations of corruption emanating from the NACH and feedback provided to the PSC • Charge transgressing HoDs and SMS members with misconduct for failing to disclose conflicts of interest • Conducting life-style audits of key staff and audits into the indebtedness of employees

25. Thank you! PSC Website: www.psc.gov.za National Anti-Corruption Hotline for the Public Service: 0800 701 701