Shaun Benton
9 September 2005
President Thabo Mbeki has called for "sustained vigilance" against corruption in South Africa, saying he did not think the problem would go away anytime soon given the emerging value systems engendered by market economies, which contribute to corrupt practices.
The President was responding to a question in Parliament in Thursday on whether the second national Anti-Corruption Summit, held six months ago, had helped the fight against corruption in the public and private sectors.
Asked whether perceptions of corruption were perhaps greater than actual incidences, Mbeki said it was better to overestimate than underestimate levels of corruption, saying this would help to stem "a tide of corruption corroding society".
He said the Treasury had allocated funds to the Public Service Commission to strengthen the secretariat of the National Anti-Corruption Forum, which would help " increase the effectiveness of our offensive against corruption".
Corruption, he said, was "inimical to the achievement of the goals of reconstruction and development that we have set ourselves ... especially the critical task to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment".
Warning against "market fundamentalism", Mbeki quoted US financier George Soros: "One of the great defects of the global capitalist system is that it has allowed the market mechanism and the profit motive to penetrate into fields of activity where they do not properly belong.
"People increasingly rely on money as the criterion of value ... what used to be a medium of exchange has usurped the place of fundamental values ... society has lost its anchor."
The President referred to the Nel Commission set up some years ago to investigate South Africa's Masterbond fraud saga.
Judge Nel had found it difficult to believe that some of the auditors involved with the Masterbond companies could have been so "blatantly dishonest", especially as they were in a profession widely perceived as based on honesty and integrity.
"To ensure that the new society we are building does not lose its anchor, and emerges as a people-centred society, we must enforce a policy of zero tolerance of all corruption," Mbeki told parliamentarians.
Source: BuaNews
