Opinion & Analysis

SA is an exceptional country. From its negotiated settlement in 1994, wrought against the odds, to the adoption of the constitution in 1996, the country has consistently proved the sceptics and naysayers wrong. Last week in Parliament, President Thabo Mbeki took another step in defining the quality of our collective future and deepening democracy. Many of Mbeki’s critics had predicted he would be unable to rise to the challenge. Mbeki deserves the support he has been given for a very difficult decision.

In 17 minutes the president set a new standard in the fight against corruption. His action raised the bar considerably and has sent out a clear message that those who seek to abuse public office for private gain and the accumulation of wealth have no place in higher office.

The signal has also been sent out to corrupt businesspeople — that those who set out to buy influence and corrupt elected representatives will find life more uncomfortable in future. The political will in the fight against corruption has been displayed at the highest level.

SA has a sound anticorruption framework which includes a law that criminalises corruption. Elected representatives at all levels are required to disclose financial interests. In addition, SA has a groundbreaking law governing access to information as well as strong legal protection for whistle-blowers. Despite this, there have been some serious challenges to the implementation of such laws and codes of conduct, causing a schism between law and practice.

The constitution requires the values of openness, transparency and accountability to infuse public life. So often, though, we have seen the opposite — Travelgate, allegations about irregularities in the arms deal, at times a heavy-handed approach to whistle-blowers, and weak implementation of the access- to-information law. In particular, instances such as Travelgate serve to represent a counterculture of wastefulness, greed, abuse of privilege and entitlement — anathema to the founding values of the constitution.

Mbeki’s speech was a reaffirmation of constitutional values and a call to better implementation, if not directly then indirectly. Apart from some areas of weak implementation, however, gaps remain in the anticorruption apparatus. Two specifically spring to mind — the need for so-called post-employment restrictions and the need to regulate private funding to political parties.

Post-employment restrictions have been defined as restrictions imposed on those who leave, retire or resign from public office. They are designed to ensure that such former public office-holders derive no unfair advantage for themselves or for others from:

• The confidential information to which they had access while holding office.
• Their former association with government.
• Using their current positions to secure future personal advantage.

The logic behind such restrictions is that there are times when the nature of public representatives’ work requires them to constantly decide among competing interests: national, constituency-based, political and personal. So the purpose of such a restriction lies not so much in stopping and punishing corrupt public officials but rather in promoting integrity in government by preventing unethical conduct before it occurs. It is for this reason that the absence of post-employment restrictions for high-ranking officials and office-bearers represents a flaw in the ethics regime.

Separately, what the Schabir Shaik case has demonstrated is the corrosive effect that money can have on politics as well as the danger of corrupt people buying influence. The jury is still out on the amounts that have been spent in last year’s election. Public funding for the year was about R66m — not nearly enough to fund what parties deem necessary to win votes. In a situation in which public money is insufficient, private money is clearly needed.

In SA, there is no regulation of private funding to political parties. What this means is that donors can give as much as they like, in secret, to the political party of their choice. Some high-profile cases here and abroad have exposed the link between inappropriate secret funding of parties and corruption. In the Shaik trial, Zweli Mkhize testified that Shaik had funded the African National Congress during the 1990s. Without the trial, however, the public had no right to know this.

Corruption or even the whiff of corruption among members of political parties merely serves to introduce an unwelcome level of cynicism about the political process among citizens.

Political corruption, it has been argued, increases income inequality and poverty. In a country as unequal as SA, allowing the wealthy to buy influence by donating as much in secret as they wish, may well result in the drowning out of the voices of the poor and marginalised who are unable to buy such influence.

At its heart, however, the regulation of party funding is a question of political equality. The only time citizens experience true equality is when they cast their vote. Where there is no control over the private funding given to political parties, distortion of electoral competition may arise, ultimately undermining the equal value of each vote. The worst and most undesirable scenario is that the wealthy can influence the direction or policy options of government.

Some form of regulation in these two areas will therefore go some way towards ending attempts by the unscrupulous to buy influence and for some to use public office as a springboard for private gain. These two glaring lacunae cannot be avoided, especially in light of the unambiguous standard Mbeki boldly set on June 14.

February is head of the Political Information & Monitoring Service at the Institute for Democracy in SA.

With acknowledgements to Judith February and the Business Day.