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NEWS > 04 February 2008

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Atlanta police officer from Ro
A Rockmart man who works for the Atlanta Police Department pleaded guilty in federal court to taking payoffs to perform his normal duties as a police officer while on duty.

The suspect was identified as Daniel Betts, 26.

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In June 2007, as part of the continuing investigation of police misconduct that was triggered by the shooting of Kathryn Johnston in November 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned that an office worker at an Atlanta apartment complex had an arrang... Read more

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Business Day - Johannesburg,So
04 February 2008
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Bumper crop fattens perception

THERE has been no shortage of events to feed the perception that SA is slowly but surely joining the ranks of corrupt African nations.

Several developments are worth noting in this regard. First is the apparent corruption mayhem that has broken out within the law enforcement arena. The Scorpions are among those in the limelight following a spate of reported incidents of corruption in the elite crime-fighting organisation.


The unit has also seen some of its officials convicted of fraud, while others are still the subject of police investigations. Vusi Pikoli, the suspended national director of public prosecutions, while still in office, made a considerable effort to dispel the idea that these developments might be an indication of widespread corruption within the unit.

However, in December 2004 “concerned officials” within the Scorpions allegedly wrote a memorandum to the minister of justice and the national commissioner of police, accusing Pikoli of misleading the public about the true state of corruption within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). This accusation has had the effect of regenerating the perceptions Pikoli sought to dispel, its veracity notwithstanding.


While seemingly keen to entertain the notion that corruption is rife within the NPA, the South African Police Service (SAPS) has also seen some of its top officials accused of deeds that feed the perception that the police are also corrupt. A recent study by the Institute for Security Studies also indicates that police corruption is on the rise, particularly after the SAPS anticorruption unit was shut down in 2002.


Also contributing to the perception that corruption is becoming common in SA is the triumphant ascension of Jacob Zuma to the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC), despite his tarnished image.


His present position, however, is perhaps less important than the prospect that he may also become the president of the country. Nonetheless, the political and moral calibre of those who lead the country’s ruling party — and therefore of what President Thabo Mbeki calls the second phase of the national democratic revolution — still matters considerably.


To justify its self-proclaimed role as the principal agent of change in SA, the ruling party is obligated to tolerate nothing less than high-calibre political cadres — especially if the transformation process is deemed much more complex than the process preceding the democratic victory of 1994.

Unfortunately, things are not so simple. Writing as departing president of the ANC in his online letter in ANC Today, Mbeki laments that membership of the ANC today “holds out the promise of significant personal material benefit … because membership … signifies the possibility of access to state power and the abuse of this access to accumulate personal wealth by corrupt means and through theft and embezzlement at the expense of the people”.


It is Mbeki’s contention that because it no longer carries the costs of banishment, torture, imprisonment and death, which characterised what he terms the first phase of the national democratic movement, the movement ceased to attract only genuine political cadres, who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.


Mbeki is an intellectual of vast political experience, and hearing such a man argue that what had protected the ANC from large-scale invasion by opportunists and careerists is no longer in place makes it hard not to think that corruption is slowly infiltrating the modern South African state and will eventually become entrenched.


Such an impression must, however, contend with the fact that the latest Transparency International corruption perception index rates SA, along with Botswana, as the least corrupt African nations. Compared with ratings of previous years, SA shows small but notable improvements from year to year.

SA’s increased anti-corruption activities, including greater emphasis on appropriate policy measures to prevent corruption, may have contributed tremendously to this improved rating.

SA’s score in the latest index effectively places it on a par with those countries whose governments are not yet perceived to be systematically corrupt and where corruption is not yet seen as a routine phenomenon that pervades the whole society.


It would therefore seem that the state of corruption in SA is less clear-cut than it might appear at first glance.


There are worrying examples of political corruption on the one hand, but also visible efforts to combat it on the other.

These conflicting realities are some of the critical issues that the coming third national anticorruption summit may need to grapple with.


In the meantime, the perception that SA is teetering on the brink of a corruption abyss remains far more pervasive than the perception of increased efforts to combat the scourge. This unfortunate perception is not likely to change if SA allows itself to keep feeding the world’s imagination enough political corruption fodder.
 

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