Pretoria - For the first time in South Africa's history, President Jacob Zuma had signed “tens of proclamations” mandating the Special Investigating Unit to investigate corruption, he said in written replies to Parliament on Monday.
This was in response to a question posed by Congress of the People leader Mosiuoa Lekota, who asked him what government was doing to combat corruption in comparison to the scale on which China was fighting corruption.
Reducing corruption was one of the critical goals for the next five years and the government was implementing “one of the most comprehensive anti-corruption strategies in the world”, Zuma said.
An anti-corruption interministerial committee was supported by the anti-corruption task team constituting various government agencies which were dedicated to fighting corruption.
“All these agencies have been asked to pool their intellectual, financial, investigative and other forms of resources in order to deal comprehensively with the scourge of corruption in the public and private sectors,” he said.
The Asset Forfeiture Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority had seized more assets accumulated through criminal activity than ever before.
Zuma added that the office of the chief procurement officer had been established to focus on the state's procurement processes.
“For far too long weaknesses in the state procurement processes have been exploited in order to commit corruption.”
The government was reviewing legislation that dealt with corruption in order to effectively fight it.
Zuma said these measures had already bore fruit. Currently 945 persons were being investigated by the anti-corruption task team, 228 of whom were officials or ex-officials.
Of these, 23 senior officials were being prosecuted, he said.
Sapa