Johannesburg - Save Our SABC and the My Vote Counts campaign are the latest members of civil society calling on the country to support the Unite Against Corruption marches.
The marches are set to take place taking place in Pretoria and Cape Town next Wednesday.
Led by trade unionists, including Zwelinzima Vavi, Irvin Jim and Jay Naidoo, the march aims to be the biggest since the advent of democracy, hoping to attract tens of thousands of citizens.
SOS Coalition spokesman Sekoetlane Phamodi said corruption now threatened to undermine the country’s democratic gains.
“Vital public institutions are being destroyed, and ordinary South Africans are being seriously prejudiced as billions of rands are either stolen or simply wasted. It is important that we don’t allow and accept these illegal practices as the ‘way things are’ in South Africa,” Phamodi said.
“Corruption thrives in an environment of weak governance, lack of transparency and mismanagement. We are united by the view that unless the crisis of governance is urgently addressed, corrupt practices will continue with impunity.
“In particular the SOS Coalition is stepping up its campaign to ensure that good governance is restored at the SABC and is currently challenging a range of bad practices that have allowed mismanagement to flourish at this vital public institution.”
The SABC is but one of South Africa’s key state institutions that failed to pass muster in a report by the Public Protector.
Titled “When Governance and Ethics Fail”, it found gross maladministration and systemic corporate governance breaches in a series of ‘pathological corporate governance failures’.
Despite “clear and credible evidence”, the Public Protector’s report and recommendations on the SABC have been ignored by the minister of communications, the SABC Board and senior management, SOS said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The SOS Coalition is pleased to join a powerful alliance against corruption and strongly encourages the people of South Africa to march against corruption on 30 September 2015.
“The SOS Coalition represents a broad spectrum of civil society stakeholders committed to the broadcasting of quality, diverse, citizen-orientated public-interest programming aligned to the goals of the SA Constitution.
“The Coalition includes a number of trade union federations including Cosatu and Fedusa, a number of independent unions including Bemawu and Mwasa; independent film and TV production sector organisations including the South African Screen Federation (SASFED); a host of NGOs and CBOs including the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), SECTION27 and a number of academics and freedom of expression activists.”
My Vote Counts co-ordinator Judith February said it was estimated that South Africa has lost R700 billion to corruption.
“This week while launching South Africa’s Development Indicators for 2014, Minister in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe, said that South Africa’s score on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index had shown a ‘slight improvement’,” she said.
“Yet, we know this is not enough and that corruption in both the public and private sectors has reached unacceptably high levels.”
The MVC campaign would also call on all political parties to be open and transparent about who funds them, specifically during this period leading to the 2016 local government elections.
“We know that secret donations foster corruption,” she said.
“In addition, MVC has noted that ‘the ruling ANC has continued to tender for state contracts via its investment vehicle, Chancellor House’. This blurring of party and state has had serious consequences for development and transparent and accountable governance.”
She called on civil society to not be complacent where there is corruption or conflicts of interests within its ranks, and called on it to be “equally vociferous in pointing this out”.
“The march, MVC says, is about ordinary citizens and not a few high profile individuals. (It) will therefore only have the desired impact if ordinary citizens take to the streets in their numbers in 30 September 2015.”
Labour Bureau