Anti-Corruption Initiatives

Policy Studies, Opinion Polls
 What studies, public opinion polls, or surveys have been carried out on public sector ethics or corruption within the past 10 years?

Study1: Title/Year (167aa)
 Victims of Crime Survey, Statistics South Africa, 1998
Study 1: short description (167ab)
Funded by the United Nations Development Programme, this is the first ever national victimisation survey conducted in South Africa. The purposes of the survey were the following:
* to provide an accurate picture of the nature, extent and patterns of crime in South Africa from the victim's perspective,
* determine victim risk and proneness, so as to inform the development of crime prevention and public education programmes, and
* to assess people's perceptions of services provided by the police and courts as components of the criminal justice system.
The survey was conducted by administering a questionnaire in face to face interviews to a randomly selected member of a sample household (4000 households). Respondents were asked questions about fraud (defined as consumer fraud or someone cheating another by selling him or her something inferior, or delivering a service of inferior quality, or selling the wrong quality) and corruption by public officials (defined as officials such as police officers or custom officials accepting payment for services rendered).
Key findings include the following: Of the proportion of individuals aged 16 years and over 15% had experienced at least one incident of crime during 1997. Of these 15 %, 3 % (808 523 individuals) had experienced fraud and 2% (521 336 individuals) had experienced corruption. (See attached Survey)

Study2: Title/Year (167ba)
 Tracking Public Perceptions of Official Corruption in South Africa (1995-1999) Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) Public Opinion Service (POS) Surveys.
Study 2: short description (167bb)
Since 1995, IDASA's POS has conducted seven separate surveys of nationally representative samples of South Africans to measure public attitudes towards public corruption. See attached sheet for details of funder, sample size, methodology etc.
The following question format, used in international opinion research has been asked:
'What about corruption, that is, where people in government and the civil service illegally used public monies for their own benefit of take bribes, How many officials do you think are involved in corruption? All/Almost All; Most; Some; A few/none.'
IDASA's first survey (Sep-Nov 95) found that 46% of South Africans felt that 'almost all' or 'most' public officials were involved in corruption. This increased to 50% in 1997 and 55% in 1998.
The IDASA June/July 1997 survey broadened the range of indicators by posing the same question about officials across different branches and levels of government, for eg. President's Office; Parliament; Provincial Government; Public officials; Local Town council. Perceptions of corruption were fairly widespread across the different institutions, with the significant exception of the office of President Nelson Mandela.
In Nov-Dec 1998 the perceptions of corruption increased across each indicator. The surveys also ask perceptions of corruption in the new dispensation vs the old 'Do you think that there is more or less corruption in government than there used to be?' (1995) and 'Compared to government under apartheid, is government today more or less corruption, or is it about the same as the old government?' (1998), In 1995 41% felt the new democratic government was more corrupt and in 1999 39%. 67% in both surveys could see either no change or an increase in corruption from apartheid to democracy.
A third way to track public perceptions about corruption is to ask an open-ended type of question that asks people 'What are the most important problems facing this country that government ought to address?' Significantly, in seven separate national surveys conducted between 1994 and 1999 election, corruption or related issues have meen mentioned only once by more than 10% of South Africans, in April 1999. The Opinion 99 Election Project surveys (1998-1999) showed that the public salience of corruption as an important national issue was on a definite upward curve. This may have had something to do with election rhetoric and the launch of the ANC's National Anti-Corruption Initiative in November 1998. During the Opinion 99 Project (involving IDASA, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa EISA, South African Broadcasting Coroportation SABC, Markinor consortium) two corruption related items were included: 'How well would you say the government is handling each of the following? Fighting corruption in government? And 'How well would you say the government is handling each of the following: Maintaining transparency and accountability.' By April 1999, 44% felt the government was doing its job 'well' or 'very well' in controlling official corruption (up substantially from 26% who had said so in September 98). By the end of the election campaign, 55% approved of the job done in maintaining democratic tranparency and accountability (compared to 31% in September). Whether this is a reflection on actual government performance or a successful ANC election campaign is uncertain. There is no evidence that more (or less) knowledgeable, articulate sections of the public are less (or more) likely to perceive high levels of public corruption. The surveys find no significant effects of education, income or rural-urban status. However, there is evidence that perceptions of official corruption vary significantly by race and levels of cynicism about public corruption are especially high amongst the minority race groups. It is also the case that 52% of black respondents also now say that 'almost all' or 'most' public officials are engaged in corruption. The demographic analysis reveals a strong impact of political geography. It is noteworthy that perceptions of corruption have consistent, independent impacts on people's satisfaction with democracy with citizens' who feel that public officials are involved in corruption less likely to be satisfied with the way democracy works. However, perceptions of corruption have no independent impact on support for democracy. (See Mattes & Africa 1999 unpublished paper 'Corruption - the attitudinal component: Tracking public perceptions of official corruption in South Africa 1995-1998).

Study3: Title/Year (167ca)
 Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Household Surveys (1998/1999)
Study 3: short description (167cb)
In order to find out what the South African public think about the prevelence of corruption in the public sector and of the government's priority to stamp it out, respondents were asked questions to this effect during three opinion polls conducted by the HSRC, the state-funded research council. The February and December 1998 surveys - which gathered the views of a national representative sample of 2200 respondents - asked people to comment on the statement that 'corruption can be found among many civil servants. Respondents in the December (1998) and March (1999) surveys were asked their views on the priority accorded by government to ensuring clean and honest conduct by public officials. Results include the fact that South Africans strongly believe (agree/strongly agree) that corruption exists within the civil service (80 % in December 1998). However, they express diverging views about the priority government has given to stamping it out. Public opinion also seems to have shifted to a more positive evaluation of government's efforts - which arguably include the workings of the Heath Commission and Public Protector as well as the launch of the National Anti-Corruption Initiative and two large conferences (in November 1998 and April 1999). Political party preferences of respondents are key determinants of attitudes towards government efforts with ANC supporters the most enthusiastic about various anti-corruption programmes. (See R Humphries, (1999) 'Corruption in the public sector: What the public think' in Nedcor ISS Crime Index Article, Vol 3, No 3.)

Study4: Title/Year (167da)
 Fighting Corruption Series, Public Service Commission, 1999, UNISA.
Study 4: short description (167db)
During 1999, four volumes of the Fighting Corruption Series were published by the Public Service Commission with support from the National Democratic Institute through a grant funded by USAID and DFID. These volumes which include various proceedings of conferences as well as commissioned papers are:
'Fighting Corruption: Strategies for Prevention: Report of the proceedings of the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference' Editors Stan Sangweni & Daryl Balia, UNISA Press, 1999.
' Fighting Corruption: Towards a National Integrity Strategy' Public Service Commission, UNISA Press, 1999.'Fighting Corruption: South African Perspectives' Editors Stan Sangweni & Daryl Balia, UNISA Press, 1999.
'Fighting Corruption: Invitation to Ethics Management' Editors Vusi Mavuso & Daryl Bali, UNISA Press, 1999.
Study5: Title/Year (167ea)
 Transparency International. Corruption Perception Index
Study 5: short description (167eb)
This international index based on the perceptions of business people who participated in certain surveys, now includes South Africa in its rankings. (See website www.transparency.de/documents/cpi/index.html). In 1999 South Africa ranked 34 amongst 99 countries with a CPI score of 5 (10 = highly clean and 0 = highly corrupt). The score was based on 12 surveys. (see Appendix A in C Heymans & B Lipietz 'Corruption and Development: Some perspectives' ISS monograph series No 40, 1999.)

 

Ethics Promotion Campaigns
 What campaigns to promote public service ethics or integrity in government or to fight corruption, both inside and outside of government, have been carried out within the past 10 years?

Campaign1: Title/Year (168aa)
 National Anti-Corruption Summit, 14-15 April 1999
Campaign 1: short description (168ab)
The Summit was funded by the European Union, through the CWCI fund and the Royal Danish Embassy. The Summit formed part of the continuing campaign against corruption in the public and all other sectors of society. All sectors, business, organised religion, NGOs/CBOs/Donors, political parties, academic institutions/professional bodies, media, labour and public sector/government participated in the summit. The summit was intended to underscore a sense of urgency and the need for an action-driven approach to combat corruption. The initial outputs were as follows:
* To develop a clearly articulated national strategy to fight corruption in all sectors of society
* To create a common understanding of corruption in all its facets
* To obtain a commitment from all stake-holders to deal with corruption
* To affirm key principles necessary for the establishment of effective and coordinated anti-corruption structures
* To provide guidelines for a programme of anti-corruption actions
* To recommend legislative measures to give muscles to anti-corruption structures
* To send a clear message that corruption will not be tolerated by Government or any other role-players in our new democracy.
A number of resolutions were adopted at the summit
(See 'Fighting Corruption: Towards a National Integrity Structure', for a full report of the Conference Proceedings)

Campaign2: Title/Year (168ba)
 Public Sector Anti-Corruption Summit, 10-11 November 1998
Campaign 2: short description (168bb)
Funded mainly by DFID, this conference, attended by over 200 delegates from Parliament, the public service, local government and organised labour in the public sector, was held in parliament to develop a concrete plan of action to combat and help prevent corruption in the public sector. The conference gave government and anti-corruption role-players an opportunity to develop practical solutions to the problems of public sector corruption and to coordinate their efforts more efficiently and effectively. The guiding themes were outlined by the Deputy President Thabo Mbeki who called for a commitment from public sector stake-holders to serve the public interest rather than self-interest as part of a ten point Ethics Management Framework. Six commissions, which met twice, defined the problem areas in specialised fields and formulated anti-corruption measures for consideration. Delegates adopted various recommendations at the conclusion of the conference which were submitted to Cabinet and forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Summit in April, 1999. The conference formed an important step towards the development of a national integrity strategy embracing all sectors. (See 'Fighting Corruption: Strategies for Prevention' (1999) for a full report of the conference proceedings.)

Campaign3: Title/Year (168ca)
 The Moral Summit (October 1998)
Campaign 3: short description (168cb)
Responding to what they describe as 'a deep moral crisis' in South Africa, the moral summit brought together the country's religious and other leaders to sign a Code of Conduct and adopt a humanitarian ethics pledge (ubuntu). (See attached - Chapter 4, Fighting Corruption: Towards a National Integrity Strategy for the code of conduct for persons in positions of responsibility and the Ubuntu Pledge.)

Campaign4: Title/Year (168da)
 South African NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) Code of Ethics (September 1997)
Campaign 4: short description (168db)
This code of ethics was adopted by members of SANGOCO to set NGOs 'a standard which is far higher than the minimum requirements of the law'. The Code of Ethics provides a challenge to other sectors to identify their core values around issues of governance, accountability and management. (See attached - Chapter 3, Fighting Corruption: Towards a National Integrity Strategy)

Campaign5: Title/Year (168ea)
 Public Service Commission Code of Conduct, (June 1997)
Campaign 5: short description (168eb)
In order to give practical effect to the relevant constitutional provisions relating to the Public Service, all employees are expected to comply with the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct for the Public Service became part of the regulations for every public servant by June 1997 and was the subject of an ethics promotional campaign by the Public Service Commission. (See attached - Chapter 22, 'Fighting Corruption: Towards a National Integrity Strategy').