It takes two to tango, or so the saying goes. Public sector corruption does not only take place within the government. Creating the pretexts necessary to gouge precious public resources requires enthusiastic private sector and other nonstate actors colluding in and often initiating “generally corrupt relationships”, to use a famously misattributed expression from the trial of convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik.
Often we forget, as we are seized by daily unfolding news stories and colourful witness testimony both in the courts and at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, that rampant state corruption and glaring irregularities in government procurement always require a corresponding bad actor outside the state, and very often this is where tender proposals originate in the first place.
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We know from the Nugent commission of inquiry into Sars, for example, that the multinational consulting firm of Bain & Company actively courted and sought out the attention of Tom Moyane before he was even appointed Sars commissioner, and before its then-managing partner in SA presented him with an orchestrated plan to gut the institution by dismantling “the elements of [good] governance one by one” so that the firm could net a cool R164m in fees.
If we think about rampant corruption as one of the symptoms of a dysfunctional social compact, then what is the illness causing these symptoms? What preventative measures do we need to put in place to forestall against the theft and misappropriation of public funds? And what early-warning systems do we have to catch it before fraudulent transactions, contracts and deals are done quietly, away from the scrutiny of oversight authorities?
The department of mineral resources & energy’s questionable 20-year, R218bn “emergency” power procurement deal, with Karpowership as its preferred bidder, is also a salutary reminder of the importance of prevention, rather than cure, when it comes to suspicious contracting by the state. It is also an illustration of just how often mercenary state contracts with predetermined outcomes can be the product of influence-peddling and unsolicited approaches from the private sector, and even from state-owned entities of other nations.
Despite loud warnings about the environmental impact of having a fleet of five gas-burning, ocean-boiling power ships docked in the ports of Richards Bay, Ngqura and Saldanha Bay, Turkey’s Karpowership had managed expertly (and likely with plenty of inside assistance) to evade ordinary environmental impact-assessment requirements — before being rightly and precipitously thwarted by environmental affairs minister Barbara Creecy.
If we think about rampant corruption as one of the symptoms of a dysfunctional social compact, then what is the illness causing these symptoms?
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed — not just in SA but globally — the biggest weakness of emergency state procurement: the suspension of compliance requirements and ordinary checks and balances in the name of urgency, which draws out the greediest private sector actors, all salivating over the chance to be first in the feeding frenzy.
In the UK, for example, Transparency International — the global coalition to end corruption — has flagged one-fifth of emergency procurement contracts related to Covid-19 as “seriously flawed” because of an arrangement in which companies connected to the governing Conservative Party were given access to a so-called “VIP lane” to fast-track their bids for government contracts.
Transparency International calculates that 27 personal protective equipment or testing contracts, collectively worth £2.1bn (about R40bn) were awarded to firms with political connections to the Conservatives. In addition, the organisation identified £255m in contracts that were awarded to companies that had only been incorporated within 60 days of the contracts going out to tender.
We are midway through this year’s training for our 2021 cohort of public service fellows at the Apolitical Academy. Next weekend’s seminar focuses on ethics in political leadership and combating corruption in the public service. It is one of most important weekends in the programme because it is designed to challenge aspirant political leaders to define an ethical framework for themselves in which their compass is not just the law, but their own conscience.
It is also an important opportunity for our fellows to meet some of the foremost corruption-busters in the Southern African Development Community region — both in the public service and in society more broadly.
We are unabashed about the purpose of all this corruption-busting in our democracies: to ensure that public funding is spent on the service delivery mandate for which it has been collected by the Treasury, and to start to build societies in which stealing is not so embedded in our national fabric.
We have a duty to build societies in which corruption is not only successfully prosecuted post facto, but in fact is so alien to our way of life and leadership that it doesn’t normally occur in the first place.
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