Billions lost to corruption while SA slips below India and Ethiopia on the poverty index
The money lost to corruption every year would feed half of South Africa’s hungry children – and yet the country still has no dedicated anti-corruption force.
The R27-billion annual corruption ‘leakage’ is roughly half the estimated cost of funding nutritional support programmes for all food-insecure households, according to civil society experts.
The largely ineffectual Government response to rampant corruption exacerbates the twin epidemics of hunger and poverty menacing much of our population.
World Population Review figures show South Africa now has 55,5% of its population living below the poverty line, a far greater proportion than India (21,9%) and Ethiopia (23,5%).
Money that should be spent on helping those in need is siphoned away by those in need of prison time. Over a quarter of South African children under the age of five are stunted due to undernourishment, and 14% of newborn babies are classified as low birthweight (LBW) according to philanthropic foundation the DG Murray Trust.
The money lost to corruption could at least halve the number of LBW babies born every year who are three times more at risk of stunting. That’s almost 100 000 babies.
“Corruption exacts a terrible invisible toll that is all the more demoralising because it is largely avoidable,” comments Cape Chamber chief executive John Lawson. “Unlike other economic shocks and knocks, corporate and public service malfeasance is self-inflicted pain within our power to eradicate.”
Despite the Zondo Commission confirming substantial evidence of state corruption, four years later not a single implicated individual has been successfully prosecuted despite prima facie evidence presented in the Commission’s final report.
In the time it has taken to lay charges against some of those implicated in the Zondo Commission report, millions more South Africans have slipped below the poverty line. Since the Commission was first established, the number of South Africans living beneath the upper-middle poverty line increased by 3,9-million, according to a World Bank report from April this year.
A total of 30,4-million South Africans now survive on less than R1 634 a month (StatsSA).
The Zondo Commission cost taxpayers about R1-billion.
The good news is that civil society is stepping into the corruption-fighting vacuum with new technology and innovative partnerships to help South Africa step back from the brink. This week the Cape Chamber reported on an AI ‘early warning system’ being developed by the Institute for Security Studies. The tool will be able to flag suspect data patterns within state institutions based on data analysis. (Read more HERE)
Civil society groups are also become involved in poverty relief to plug the widening food gap between Government’s social grant network and hungry households.
This month retailer Shoprite began assisting target groups of undernourished women in the Western Cape who can now collect subsidised protein-rich food from their local grocery school. The pilot project, which also involves the Western Cape government and philanthropic foundation the DG Murray Trust, could be a model for broader countrywide assistance. (Read more HERE)
President Cyril Ramaphosa this week acknowledged the need to target corruption in a more systematic way. He and his Cabinet will now consider the recommendations of the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, which has recommended a permanent over-arching anti-corruption body.
“What is the reason for the long delay in doing something that is logical and so desperately needed for our country,” comments Lawson. “The sooner we clamp down on corruption, the sooner we can give vulnerable children the opportunity they deserve.”
Jacques Moolman
President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry