Corruption in Infrastructure Delivery: South Africa
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Corruption in Infrastructure Delivery: South Africa CASE STUDY Glenn Hollands Partnering to COMBAT CORRUPTION Series Editor: M. Sohail Corruption in Infrastructure Delivery: South Africa. Corruption in Infrastructure Delivery: South Africa A case study Prepared by Glenn Hollands of Mbumba Development Services ‘This unseemly scramble for political power in municipal government appears to be driven by the desire to abuse elected positions to lay hands on the economic resources that the local authorities have the possibility to access. This includes the power of members of municipal executive authorities to determine the outcomes of municipal tendering processes, regardless of the fact that the Municipal Finance Management Act expressly prohibits the involvement of councillors and mayors in adjudicating bids for municipal tenders.’ President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, National Council of Provinces, 4 November 2005 South Africa 2007 Water, Engineering and Development Centre Loughborough University Leicestershire LE11 3TU UK © WEDC, Loughborough University, 2007 Any part of this publication, including the illustrations (except items taken from other publications where the authors do not hold copyright) may be copied, reproduced or adapted to meet local needs, without permission from the author/s or publisher, provided the parts reproduced are distributed free, or at cost and not for commercial ends, and the source is fully acknowledged as given below. Please send copies of any materials in which text or illustrations have been used to WEDC Publications at the address given above. A reference copy of this publication is also available online at: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/wedc/publications/ Hollands, G. (2007) Corruption in Infrastructure Delivery: South Africa From the Partnering to Combat Corruption series Series Editor: M.Sohail WEDC, Loughborough University, UK. ISBN: 978 1 84380 114 6 Please note: The views expressed in this document are not necessarily those of the Department for International Development or WEDC, Loughborough University. Designed and produced at WEDC Acknowledgements The authors and the series editor gratefully acknowledge the many different people who have willingly contributed in knowledge, opinion and time to the development of this series. It is very diffi cult to provide an exhaustive list of contributors who developed this series. We would like to thank particularly DFID for funding this project. Our special thanks to Professor Susan Rose- Ackerman of the Yale University, USA for providing valuable comments on some documents in the series. Thanks to Dr. Sue Cavill for providing academic support to the series editor and to Jane Lanigan for technical editing. We thank all of the people who have provided us information confi dentially on such a sensitive issue as corruption. Special thanks to the people from the low-income settlements in the various case locations who have contributed to the research and have provided their perspectives on the issues. We feel greatly indebted to them. Contents Acronyms…………………………………………………………………………………… …….viii List of boxes......................................................................................................................... vi List of figures........................................................................................................................ vi List of tables......................................................................................................................... vi 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................. 1 2. Research methodology .............................................................................................. 2 3. Report structure .......................................................................................................... 4 4. Overview of corruption in SA..................................................................................... 5 4.1 Corruption and development ...................................................................................... 5 4.2 Corruption in the civil service...................................................................................... 6 4.3 Defining corruption...................................................................................................... 7 4.4 Patterns of corruption and public perception............................................................11 4.5 How corrupt is South Africa? ....................................................................................15 4.6 Anti-corruption programmes and measures .............................................................16 4.7 The Auditor General (AG).........................................................................................18 4.8 The Special Investigation Unit (SIU).........................................................................20 4.9 Legislation.................................................................................................................25 4.10 Measures ..................................................................................................................26 4.11 Civil society and corruption.......................................................................................27 4.12 Partnership with government....................................................................................31 5. Local government .....................................................................................................38 5.1 Problems in managing municipal finances ...............................................................38 5.2 Eastern Cape scenario .............................................................................................38 5.3 Policy and legislation related to municipal corruption ..............................................39 5.4 Municipal corruption: National examples..................................................................39 5.5 Profiling financial problems.......................................................................................43 5.6 Corruption and infrastructure services......................................................................46 5.6.1 Consolidate Municipal Infrastructure Programme (CMIP)............................47 5.6.2 Housing delivery ...........................................................................................53 5.6.3 Operational considerations...........................................................................54 5.6.4 Service delivery support – Eastern Cape .....................................................58 5.7 The Case of Qaukeni Municipality............................................................................61 5.7.1 Brief profile....................................................................................................61 v 5.7.2 Infrastructure Services (Qaukeni, 2002).......................................................63 5.7.3 Service expectations: Policy.........................................................................69 5.7.4 Political conflict and corruption in Qaukeni...................................................69 5.7.5 Crisis timeline................................................................................................70 5.7.6 Findings of Select Committee on Local Government & Administration .......71 5.7.7 Conclusions about Qaukeni..........................................................................73 5.7.8 Access to information ...................................................................................74 6. Concluding remarks..................................................................................................77 6.1 How corrupt is South Africa? ....................................................................................77 6.2 How useful are South Africa’s anti-corruption programmes?...................................79 6.2.1 Local government corruption ........................................................................80 7. Endnotes ....................................................................................................................81 8. References .................................................................................................................82 Appendices.................................................................................................................... A1.1 List of boxes Box 1. Afesis-corplan......................................................................................................30 Box 2. Audit committee sidelined ...................................................................................42 Box 3. Case Study: Middledrift waste disposal..............................................................51 Box 4. Local partnerships...............................................................................................79 List of figures Figure 1. Victimization by corruption in South Africa ..................................................15 List of tables Table 1. Respondent’s personal experience of corruption............................................12 Table 2. Likelihood that citizens have to use bribery to access services .....................13 Table 3. Respondent’s perception of the seriousness of corruption.............................13 Table 4. How well is the government handling corruption? ..........................................14 Table 5. South Africa’s anti-corruption