Cape Town - There has been much head scratching and verbal semantics in the portfolio committee on justice and constitutional development over the past few days as members have to crack down on all possible corruption in the public and private sectors.

Finalising the Prevention of Corruption Bill as part of its hectic year-end schedule to process a whole clutch of bills and protocols, the committee has had to toss around ideas and definitions in order to ensure the law made it illegal, without infringing any constitutional rights, for the private sector to bribe or influence officials in the public sector in order to get government tenders, for civil servants to accept bribes or for any bribery to take place within the private sector in order to get business or inside information.

Those bribes, it emerged, can take the form of cash, in-kind payments, favours or promise to get politicians elected.

Bribery could also take place to encourage potential witnesses to testify in a particular way in corruption court cases, whether they were being prompted to tell the truth or not, said chairman Johnny de Lange.

"(Payment) of any kind of money to go and testify in any way whatsoever, truthful or untruthful, is clearly inimical to the concept that giving evidence as a witness in a court is your civic duty ... no one should be paid for that," he said.

This would not, however, cover compensation for missing a day's work or transport to court, which left a "slight loophole".

State legal advisors were quickly asked to plug this.

Committee members explored several other possible permutations of corruption, ranging from bribing traffic officers to selling sensitive information, as well as the penalties each form of corruption would attract.

By the end of it all yesterday, everyone was looking a bit ragged - and hoping to hell that they had covered most of the eventualities and that the powers that be would be able to implement the new law.

They have not finished with it yet, although De Lange hopes to wrap it up tomorrow after getting a last few legal opinions.

The bill, originally aimed mainly at preventing corruption in the public sector, has been broadened to cover the private sector, with employers obliged to report any corruption that takes place in their business as well as corrupt government officials.

With acknowledgements to Linda Loxton and the Business Report.