South Africa has repeatedly established institutions to fight corruption, yet those tasked with tackling graft have themselves become embroiled in controversy.
According to Lawson Naidoo, Executive Director of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, one of the fundamental problems is that the wrong people are being appointed to positions of authority.
Naidoo said no objective criteria were set out for the qualities and attributes required of leaders of institutions such as the Hawks, the South African Police Service and the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC).
“It’s the wrong people being appointed to the positions of authority within these institutions,” Naidoo said.
He said recommendations on how senior appointments should be made had been around for years but had not been acted on.
“We continue to ignore the obvious things to do and appoint the wrong people to positions of authority, and when they go wayward, we look surprised.”
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Why leadership matters in the fight against corruption
Naidoo said the problem was not simply about finding technically skilled people.
He pointed to the appointment of Riah Phiyega as national commissioner of the South African Police Service as an example, saying Phiyega had no policing experience.
He also cited the leadership of IDAC, saying former director Andrea Johnson was a skilled prosecutor but questioning whether she had the necessary leadership and management capabilities for the role.
“Those are the questions that should have been looked at before she was appointed,” Naidoo said.
He argued that questions about the ethical framework, leadership and management capabilities of candidates should be addressed before appointments are made, rather than years later at a commission of inquiry.
Independence needs checks and balances
Naidoo said genuinely independent anti-corruption institutions needed more than the ability to investigate powerful people.
True independence, he said, involved robust selection processes, adequate resources and proper oversight.
He pointed to the appointment of an oversight judge as an important development, saying people who knew things were going wrong at IDAC previously had nowhere to turn because the inspecting judge had not been appointed.
Naidoo said oversight was critical because institutions with wide-ranging powers also needed checks and balances.
He also said measures such as lifestyle audits and qualification checks for IDAC staff should have been carried out before people were appointed.
Political interference and the NPA
Naidoo also raised concerns about the leadership of the National Prosecuting Authority.
He said the fact that successive permanent National Directors of Public Prosecutions had not completed their terms pointed to “consistent levels of political interference in the functioning of this critical institution”.
Naidoo said allegations of political interference or political manipulation had surrounded the early departure of permanent NDPPs over the past 30 years.
He argued that the 10-year term for an NDPP was too long and said the term should instead be seven years and non-renewable.
He also questioned the practice of appointing senior prosecutors for life.
“If you get appointed at the age of 45, you’re there for 20 years, and that’s not healthy,” he said.
“You need a churn of people. You don’t need people to become too comfortable and too powerful in their positions that they are no longer being held accountable.”
For Naidoo, independence and accountability therefore had to go together.
Don’t scrap IDAC, strengthen it
Despite the problems facing IDAC, Naidoo said South Africa should not respond by simply creating another anti-corruption body.
“I think we bolster what we have,” he said.
He argued that the establishment of IDAC had been a long time coming and that the Hawks, which replaced the Scorpions, had not been as effective as they needed to be.
Naidoo said the Hawks had been deliberately undermined during the State Capture era through poor leadership appointments.
Rather than building another institution, he said the focus should be on strengthening IDAC and putting the necessary checks and balances in place.
Naidoo also pointed to a report from the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council proposing an Office of Public Integrity as a Chapter Nine institution, saying the President had not responded to the report almost a year after receiving it.
Until there was an overarching strategy to counter corruption, Naidoo said, there should be no discussion about replacing IDAC.
“What we need to do is to begin to strengthen it and create the checks and balances within the system that are actually allowing it to go out and execute its mandate and not get sidetracked into these political battles that are permeating all of the law enforcement agencies.”
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