Publications
Partners
No one in his/her right mind can deny that corruption has become a serious social problem that threatens to plunge this country into serious socio-political instability if those in positions of power continue to put their heads in the sands and just pay lip service to the issue without taking any decisive actions to arrest the problem. It is however counterproductive when those whose stated objective is to help stem the raging tide of corruption begin to make public pronouncements that arouse scepticism and suspicion with regard to the veracity of the extent of this problem. Some people may argue that since everyone agrees that corruption is such a serious problem in our country the issue of the degree thereof is neither here nor there. I beg to differ somewhat with this argument.
When you start quantifying the nature of a problem, either in monetary or physical terms, your aim becomes one of not just pointing out the existence of the problem but also to show the extent of the potential damage or consequences that will follow.
Earlier this week the Institute of Internal Auditors stated that South Africa has lost R700 billion to corruption over the last 20 years. What I found quite astounding is that many people seemed quite happy to accept the R700 billion figure at face value without any question. This was probably so because this figure is well aligned with their own perceptions about the level of corruption in the country or that it suits their own personal or political agenda. This becomes even more incredulous when one considers the fact that many South Africans have a habit of questioning the accuracy of statistics especially those issued by government bodies charged with collecting official statistics. We know very well that every time the minister of Police announces crime statistics any mention of an improvement in any category of crime, however negligible, is met with ridicule and disbelief by a section of our society.
As far as I know the Institute of Internal Auditors has so far never bothered to explain the methodology used to arrive at the R700 billion figure. Maybe they think coming from the Auditing profession they need not waste their time on such subtlety. After all auditors are a special breed and their word is gospel. The problem is that this announcement lends itself to manipulation and malicious usage. Most of the comments I have seen on some sections of the media, including News24, attribute the entire R700 billion to government corruption even though the IIA did not make any statement to that effect. Some went to the extent of trying to show how many hospitals and schools could have been built with R700 billion and that to me presupposes that the whole R 700 billion relate to government corruption. It is a known fact that there is massive corruption happening in the private sector through under invoicing, non disclosure of income, fictitious tax claims , etc.
The other question I need to pose to the learned people at IIA is how do they cost corruption? Is the R700 billion made of the total rand value of all transactions done in a corrupt manner or is it made up of the inflated portion of the contract price ? For example, there were rumours that there was corruption in the form of price fixing during the bidding for tenders to build World Cup soccer stadia. Six stadiums were built at a cost of approx R4,5 billion each bringing the total amount to R27 billion. Now the question that arises is does the whole R27 billion rand qualify to be classified as a Cost of Corruption because the whole process was corrupt even though the firms that won the tenders delivered value in the form of stadiums ? Again, bribery in the awarding of tenders is a problem in both the public and private sector. However, in many instances the person offering the bribe to win a tender is prepared to forego a portion of his profit by paying a bribe. Now which part of this corrupt transaction will be deemed to be a cost of corruption ? Applying this setup to a government scenario which part of this corrupt transaction will be deemed to have robbed the public of X number of schools since the payer of the bribe delivered goods to the government while at the same time choosing to sacrifice a part of his profit?
I hope that in future the IIA will see it necessary to explain some of these issues in order to prevent confusion and possible doubt as to the true intentions of their otherwise noble efforts.
Tendani Siala
PRETORIA
