Stop the corruption, SA is angry, says SAIPA

South Africans fed up with corruption and taking action according to the latest analysis of corruption trends released by Corruption Watch. Photo: File Picture

South Africans fed up with corruption and taking action according to the latest analysis of corruption trends released by Corruption Watch. Photo: File Picture

Published Jul 30, 2021

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THE South African Institute of Professional Accountants (Saipa) has called for the culling of the beast that is corruption which has ravaged the country even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Faith Ngwenya, Saipa Technical and Standards Executive, said that South Africans were angry, frustrated and despondent over the rampant corruption in both the country’s public and private sectors.

Ngwenya was speaking on Friday during a webinar with the Black Business Council on how the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) was approaching its fight against corruption.

“Corruption cuts to the very fabric that makes us a society, we have many problems as country such as unemployment which really is something that should be worrying us, we have poverty, inequality, gender-based violence and very low economic growth and in the last two years we have got Covid-19 ravaging the country and the last thing we should be worrying about is corruption.

“Unfortunately it (corruption) becomes the biggest beast that we have to face and the problem with corruption is that it permeates all of these areas and it is the reason why we have got such high unemployment, it leads to the crimes that we are seeing and why the economy is growing at the rate that we don’t want to see it growing,” Ngwenya said.

She said that the rampant corruption sometimes left them wondering whether the institutions that had been established to safeguard the country against corrupt elements were doing their jobs.

She added that the country's citizens had become angry and despondent because acts of corruption robbed the poorest of the poor of basic needs that would make their lives better.

"We have got the South African Constitution, hailed as the best constitution worldwide, and it envisages a society that is based on democratic values, social justice and fundamentally it is based on human rights, but with the way that things are going I think that envisaged society which is based on democratic values, human rights, is a thing that's never going to happen.

"That is because corruption has really become and continues to be the greatest threat to any possibility of realising our constitutional dream. It's not all doom and gloom, we still have hope that with institutions like the SIU, the public protector and a number of other Chapter 9 institutions we might really win this fight. But, it really is going to take us facing our demons, being able to speak frankly about it and trying to find a common solution," Ngwenya said.

She added that due to corruption the country's institutions were waning, businesses collapsing and that the situation became even more dire for black businesses who were hard hit because of corruption in both the private and public sectors.

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