Chief Justice Raymond Zondo advised government to “close the taps” in public procurement to effectively fight corruption.

Zondo was speaking at the National Dialogue on Anti-Corruption, in Johannesburg, where he said that corruption in the country had reached unacceptable levels, and that unless attended to, citizens would not have a country worthy to call home.

He said most of the corruption in the country was in the public procurement sector, which remained vulnerable to corruption with millions of rands looted every day.

“If we close the taps in public procurement, we will make a big difference in our fight against corruption,” he explained.

Zondo believes that if the independent and multi-disciplinary Scorpions unit had not been disbanded, there would not be high levels of corruption in South Africa.

“I have a sense that if the Scorpions were not disbanded, we would not have the level of corruption that we have now in our country,” he said.

WHISTLEBLOWER INCENTIVISATION

He noted that whistleblowers and investigative journalists had played a crucial role in the work of the Zondo Commission, highlighting from his recommendations that whistleblowers needed to be protected and incentivised.

Zondo explained that while many people were critical of the recommendation to incentivise whistleblowers, he still believed that whistleblowers should get a percentage of the money recovered.

He noted that the incentivisation would only apply where money was recovered based on the information disclosed by the whistleblower.

Zondo said some people countered his recommendation, by arguing that people would only come forward with information for the money and not because it is the right thing to do.

“…but our level of corruption is so bad that we in South Africa do not have the luxury to say we do not want the information because we have to pay. I want all the information. The critical thing is you will not get money if your disclosure did not play a critical role in recovering the money,” he explained.

Zondo said that citizens had to change the culture of corruption.

“It might take long time, but we have to. Each and every one of us in our daily interactions, it is how we raise our children, it’s at schools, it’s at churches, it's everywhere. We must make sure that everyone abhors corruption, that everyone says we should have no corruption in our country,” he said.