Anti-Corruption Summit, Cape Town
7 December 2006
Corruption is a syndrome of deprivation that signifies an absence of good
and solid values that are necessary to uphold moral principles in our society.
Corruption also poses a serious threat to the achievement of the goals of our
developmental state, which is largely focussed on wealth re-distribution and
rectifying the imbalances of the past. We are hence faced with the task of
rebalancing our society to rectify the imbalances of the past, but this process
also creates gaps for those who are opportunistic, making our task difficult
because of insufficient resources.
Fierce competition for scarce resources also creates opportunities for
fraud, when those who are desperate for material change decide to take
unscrupulous measures to change their quality of life, at the detriment of
others who are equally in need. This anti-corruption summit therefore signifies
a deep sense of commitment to control and eliminate corruption and give all our
people equal opportunities.
The material level of corruption also indicates that something is wrong with
the soul. In addition to this, the spiritual elements in our transitional and
developmental state have been repellently neglected, as people move more and
more towards accumulating material gains for themselves. In the fourth Annual
Nelson Mandela Lecture president Thabo Mbeki asserted that the ascendancy of
greed is smothering social cohesion and blocking mutually beneficial human
solidarity. The practice of pursuing accumulation above all else and at all
costs also seems to be on the rise. He also argues that this practice of
accumulation is born of assimilating capitalist values that characterised
accumulation under apartheid. This means that we enter into relations with
other people on the basis of what we stand to gain materially from others.
Apartheid has distorted our value system to an extent where people are
willing to do what ever it takes to elevate themselves, with no concern for
those who would be negatively affected by their actions. Goodwill was
undermined in the past, where the prosperity of one community was dependant
upon the demise and destruction of the majority. For this reason our people
today are embracing self-enrichment and self-preservation as a means to ensure
that they have access to a better quality of life. This displacement of our
value systems leaves social relations in our society in a state of confusion.
It is therefore our duty to begin to find ways of creating a broad based value
system that will guide us as a nation.
In his paper entitled "Towards policies that promote a caring society,"
Khehla Shubane posed the question as to whether attention has been given to
whether South Africa has defined values around which our entire society can
cohere. Establishing a collective value system will allow our people to draw
from a single pool of goodwill, for moral guidance will allow us to find our
commonality. Summits like this also play a critical, allowing us to see the
commonality of all our values as a collective, as a nation.
Taking cognisance of the above history of deprivation does not imply that we
should be lenient to offenders. We are going to fight corruption no matter what
the origins of corruption are. We cannot allow the legalised distortions of the
past to allow the entrenchment of a new form of legalised corruption by being
lenient to offenders.
We have to strengthen all instruments in this battle against corruption. We
understand what is driving people, but we need to emphasise that corruption is
destructive and that it affects the entire country. Corruption in the Public
Service undermines every strategic effort, such as New Partnership for Africa's
Development (NEPAD), Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(AsgiSA), Ikapa Elihlumayo and other government initiatives to change the
quality of life of the poor. We cannot allow bandits to destroy the collective
goodwill of our society because investors will not come to country that deals
in corruption. We must therefore send the message that South Africa is a
country that deals justly.
The fundamentals of our society are against corruption. Democracy also
creates an antidote to corruption. Democracies are transparent and have all the
elements that are against corruption. Corruption flourishes in non-democratic
societies and remains hidden because there is no free media or any other
democratic agencies that would expose its treachery. Non-democracies therefore
create conditions to hide corruption. Our country may appear as more corrupt,
when in fact the difference is that when compared to the previous system of
authoritarian institutions, measures to hold government accountable were
suppressed.
Our institutional systems are in place to deal effectively with perpetrators
of corruption. Our country also generally has an environment that is intolerant
to corruption. That is also a general consensus amongst our people that if you
are corrupt you must be caught. There is therefore a common understanding that
corruption is reprehensible. But there is a tendency of others to exploit this
intolerance towards corruption, by using this tag where it is not suited, due
to their desperation to prove that you presided over a corrupt government, only
to ensure that they are next in line to govern. I believe that our democracy is
strong enough to withstand any force.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
7 December 2006
