The issue of corruption is South African will be on many people's minds when they go to vote on 7 May. Grocott's Mail spoke to two political leaders, Kevin Mileham and Scara Njadayi, about this issue; both agreed that South Africans are concerned over corruption.
The issue of corruption is South African will be on many people's minds when they go to vote on 7 May. Grocott's Mail spoke to two political leaders, Kevin Mileham and Scara Njadayi, about this issue; both agreed that South Africans are concerned over corruption.
In responding on behalf of the ANC, Njadayi, the secretary of the Regional Executive Committee said corruption was a networking chain in the country.
"Even the people who are entrusted with that responsibility to curb corruption are the same people who get corrupt.
"But the notion that only politicians are corrupt is not true. Officials are corrupt, even in the private sector there is corruption," he said.
Mileham, who is a Eastern Cape Member of Parliament for the DA said the problem is the lack of accountability and that no action is taken against people who are involved in corrupt activities.
"We (DA) would never have people who have dark clouds handing over their heads in leadership positions.
"The ANC does that; if a person is found guilty or is suspended due to corrupt activities they promote them.
"They are not held accountable from Mayor to President," Mileham said.
Njadayi said the ANC inherited some degree of corruption from previous regimes.
"When we came into power we were not focused on measures to curb corruption, we were under pressure to deliver services to the masses," he said.
He said officials in the previous regimes benefited enormously from corruption.
"Former ministers got affluent places especially in the Garden Route with potential revenue and those issues were not addressed," he said.
"That system was contaminated….some officials found themselves being involved in corrupt activities because there were no measures in place to deal with that," Njadayi said. "However having said that, when we came into power the focus was not on corruption."
"Even Nelson Mandela said we must focus on reconciliation as a principle, the previous regime and its corruptions was never collapsed but was integrated into the new system."
Mileham said these days many people in the ruling party are allegedly involved in corrupt activities.
"They have dark clouds over their heads, even the president of the country. All those people are on the ANC's party list…they get promoted. The huge problem is the lack of accountability in government," he said.
Mileham cited Makana municipality speaker Rachel Madinda-Isaac's signing of a R3 million settlement with former municipal manager Pravine Naidoo as an example.
"No action was taken against her. What we see is more and more people alleged in corrupt activities that are not held accountable.
"She was not authorised to sign anything, in fact she is supposed to enforce the rules of council, and yet she signed that document," Mileham said.
To this Njadayi said the ANC Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and the Refional Executive Committee (REC) asked Madinda-Isaac why she signed the said document.
"A primitive question on this matter was asked to the council speaker.
'There was an engagement between her, the PEC and REC and also the mayor and the then chief whip. She answered that question transparently and admitted that she was misled in the process," said Njadayi.
He added that councillors are not necessarily lawyers and thus some legal documents can be complex for them.
To this answer Mileham said the document was not complex at all, and that the DA is following the case of the speaker.
"We have written two letters to the MEC about this matter and since today there is no response from his office," he said.
Njadayi said the ANC is consistently working very hard to fight corruption and will intensify its measures.
"We are not a corrupt organisation. However we have our own people involved in fighting corruption," he said. "In the public sector there are people who also have interests in government and are embroiled in corrupt activities. Corruption is a dangerous network, what we ask is for people not to blackmail the ANC about it, it is everywhere in South Africa."
