Corruption is like a rampant virus that weakens every part of the state and ultimately prevents it from performing its core functions.
Until we find a way of stamping out government corruption and holding the offenders to account, we will always be playing a game of catch up when it comes to rolling out services to the citizens of our country.
But there is a form of corruption that is equally insidious, and which often seems to slip beneath the radar.
The perception is that this form of corruption evades the same level of media scrutiny, and that taxpayers are somehow more tolerant of it. I’m talking, of course, of corruption within the private sector.
Let me make it clear upfront: Private sector corruption is as damaging to society as any form of government corruption.
Under DA government it will not be tolerated and we will employ every measure possible to bring perpetrators to book.
But this is not something we can do on our own. It will take leadership and partnerships in the private sector. Corrupt practices in the private sector can take many forms.
Some of these take place between two or more private companies, and examples of these include insider trading, collusion, price fixing and tax evasion. Whatever name we call it, it is still corruption.
For every arms deal, nuclear deal or Nkandla project, there are big companies – both here and abroad – who pay the inducements to secure contracts on inflated tenders.
When our government went on its multi billion Rand spending spree on fighter jets, frigates, submarines and a host of other aircraft and training equipment, it involved global arms companies like British Aerospace, Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace, MAN Ferrostaal, Thales and Thomson-CFS, as well as banks in Germany, Italy, Sweden, Britain and France.
Without the complicity of these private entities, this large-scale government corruption would not have been possible.
Mmusi Maimane
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Tags: corruption
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