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The Democratic Alliance (DA) is deeply concerned by the enormous increase in corruption cases involving government departments and public entities, detailed by head of the Special Investigating Unit (SUI), Willie Hofmeyer, in Parliament yesterday. Parliament heard that 16 departments and entities are now under investigation, for a range of offences, including corruption, maladministration and fraud, and that the total cost of mismanaged public funds could amount to as much as R20 billion this financial year.
 
Some of the more serious investigations pertain to:
-- Irregularities in almost half of the government’s 10 000 subsidised housing projects.
-- R35-million in payments by the Department of Public Works to entities in which departmental officials reportedly have business interests. 
-- The construction of 33 new police stations, valued at R330 million, which is under investigation for “significant irregularities”. 
-- Undeclared interests of SABC employees in companies which conduct business with the broadcast network, amounting to more than R2.4 billion. 
-- R500 million worth of suspect waste management tenders from the Ekurhuleni Metro, involving various contractors.
 
The DA believes that this development highlights the urgent need to pass graft-busting legislation, such as our Private Members’ Bill pertaining to the business interests of state employees. 
 
Earlier this month, I briefed the Committee on Private Members’ Legislative Proposals and Special Petitions on the DA’s Private Member’s bill which aims to regulate the business interests of state employees and proposed that: 
 
1. Government employees and their families should be prohibited from directly or indirectly holding more than 5% of shares, stock, membership or other interests in an entity that does business with the government, unless approval is given by the relevant Minister in accordance with certain criteria set out in the Bill.
2. Before government enters into any contract with an entity for the sale, lease or supply of goods and services, the entity must provide an affidavit disclosing whether or not it is owned or part-owned by employees of the government.
3. All government employees disclose their business interests at prescribed intervals, in the same way that members of the cabinet are already required to do. 
 
The DA has already passed into law the Business Interests of Employees Bill in the Western Cape in December last year. This legislation moves to restrict provincial government employees from doing business with the provincial government, and requires provincial government employees to disclose their business interests.
 
We believe these measures need to be adopted across the entire country.
 
The absence of these much needed restrictions on state employees doing business with the state will continue to invite corruption and the abuse of state resources. Such measures could have helped to prevent a number of those instances of alleged corruption now being investigated by the SIU. The fact that R2.4-billion in SABC contracts, and R35-million in Public Works payments, are both now under investigation because of conflicts of interests involving employees’ financial interests demonstrates the urgent need to pass legislation that deals with this problem up-front.
 
We urge the ANC’s legislators in the National Assembly to strongly consider supporting this legislation.