Out of the five municipalities with the most corruption reports in 2023, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Tshwane accounted for 71% of the complaints, according to Corruption Watch (CW).
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This is based on the organisation’s 12th annual corruption report, Changing the Landscape.
More than 12 years after its inception, CW reported receiving more than 46 900 complaints of alleged corruption from whistleblowers.
CW noted that there were an average of 11 reports per day from all over South Africa, ‘from ordinary people brave enough to expose corruption and abuse of power.’
In 2023, the organisation reported receiving 2 110 reports, with 38% of them focusing on wrongdoing and malfeasance in the mining sector.
The policing sector received the second most reports (23%), followed by business (16%), basic education (12%), and state-owned entities (11%).
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Maladministration accounted for 34% of all corruption complaints in 2023, followed by fraud (21%), employment irregularities (16%), bribery or extortion (15%), and procurement irregularities (13%).
‘The prevalence of corruption at the local government level emerges again as a key trend.’
Out of the five municipalities with the highest number of corruption reports, three metropolitan municipalities, the City of Johannesburg, the City of Tshwane and the City of Cape Town, collectively account for 71% of corruption incidents, followed by Dannhauser and Matjhabeng at 15% and 14% respectively.
‘Turning to the distribution of corruption reports across provinces, Gauteng once again comes out on top with 37% of complaints, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 19%, Free State with 10%, and the Western Cape with 9%. These provinces, which collectively represent 75% of reports, are all considered to be hot spots for monitoring corruption,’ the report stated.
In the Western Cape, the most reports were for fraud (24%), maladministration (15%), dereliction of duty (12%), abuse of power (9%), and employment irregularities (9%).
Dr Harlan Cloete, a University of the Free State research fellow and local governance expert, said he was not surprised that Johannesburg, Tshwane and Cape Town had a high number of reports because they were larger cities with congested areas.
He said a large number of reports demonstrated that people were concerned about their rights and responsibilities.
‘People are reporting. We are an open and transparent society that are very vigilant. There is a lot of corruption that happens, that goes unreported. Corruption is not just government, it’s a societal problem we face,’ said Cloete.
Speaking to IOL, City of Cape Town spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said that the City has no record of having received any allegations from Corruption Watch. He added that, as a result, the report cannot be taken as a reflection of actual corruption, as it is not clear whether any of these complaints were reported for investigation.
‘The City received a clean audit for the financial year 2022/23. The City has a zero-tolerance approach to corruption, as evidenced by its proactive stance to investigate any matters brought before it.’
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