The tough new provisions to combat corruption contained in the Prevention of Corruption Bill could be broadened still further to include purely private sector practices as criminal activity.

Some critical suggestions have been made to Parliament's justice committee which is at present working on the bill. The first is that while private sector involvement in public sector corruption is included, specific private sector crimes should also be included.

The second is the suggestion that the bill be expanded to include a section on party political funding. Parts of the bill could also be expanded to specifically include corruption involving elected public representatives and judicial officers.

Chairman of the justice committee Johnny de Lange, in an interview, said that anyone with information on purely private sector corruption, and had any evidence of areas in private sector endeavour where crimes were being committed, should come forward with suggestions and these would be included in the bill. Areas which could receive scrutiny are contracts and sub-contracts.

De Lange said that the committee had taken note of the recent corporate governance scandals in the US involving Enron and WorldCom. "We have asked for the recent US legislation on corporate governance, which was enacted to try to bring confidence back to the US corporate sector, and if there is anything there which is of value we will include it in our legislation."

He said that these corporate scandals had caused far more pain and loss around the world than public sector corruption ever had. De Lange said the general provisions of the bill which governed inducements for favours applied equally to the private and public sectors.

Corruption involving private and public sectors has been spelt out, but there may be specific areas of "private to private" corruption that need to be included.

Richard Calland, head of monitoring at pro-democracy organisation Idasa, said it was not fair or right to exempt purely private sector activities from the bill. He said there was just as much a duty of trust between companies and their employees and shareholders as there was between the public sector and the public.

"It is very important that we use this bill, indeed every opportunity, to strengthen corporate governance so as to protect consumer and investor interests," Calland said.

De Lange said that the bill would also be expanded to include elected public representatives, particularly MPs.

While the general clauses of the bill, which refer to rewards being offered for consideration in the award of things like tenders, contracts, licences, permits and employment, the section for MPs could make it an offence to vote in a certain way for reward or even to delay or hinder the progress of legislation as a result of inducement.

Similar steps will be applied to judges and magistrates. The law will apply to those who offer inducements and those who accept them. Calland was also at the head of the Idasa initiative to have a chapter included in the bill covering party political funding.

"We thought that this bill gave an opportunity to finally seize itself on the issue of private funding of political parties," he said, adding that when the Funding of Political Parties Bill was considered by Parliament some years ago the then minister of constitutional development, Valli Moosa, said the next step was to address the issue of funding. All political parties get funds from the taxpayer according to their performance in the last election.

"This is a real test of the will of political parties to fight corruption, because it will not serve their immediate interests," Calland said.

He said one of the lessons of the arms deal was the way in which companies attempted to buy influence by providing inducements.

He said that one of the problems in SA was that there were extensive election campaigns over many months simply because there was no limit on what parties could spend on elections.

"It would be better to have short campaigns so that political parties don't need so much money. It would then be possible to, say, cap donations at R200 000 a year or a maximum of R1m in five years from any particular donor."

Idasa suggested three categories for donations: anonymous, confidential and public, depending on the size. The largest donations, say over R20 000, would have to be declared. A political party would have to appoint a funding officer who would comply with the law or face prosecution. A possible sanction, Calland said, would be to withhold the public funding for political parties if they did not declare their private donations.

De Lange said that he did not think it was practical to include party political funding in the Prevention of Corruption Bill simply because there was nothing to hang offences on. He said because there was no system governing party political funding it would not be possible to simply create a series of offences.

He did point out, however, that the general clauses of the bill as it stands would apply as much to political parties as it would to public servants or private sector companies. Thus any official of a political party, involved in say, bribery, as defined in the bill, will be guilty of an offence.

Calland said he accepted the point made, but said "we are hoping that the justice committee will recognise the importance of this issue and charter a way forward perhaps with a recommendation that it be considered in terms of other legislation".

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.