CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), Wayne Duvenage, said that a number of private companies initiated and participated in corrupt arrangements due to the loopholes or the absence of internal safeguards.
Civil organisations and political parties said that the public sector should be equally condemned for unlawfully benefiting from public coffers and the capture of the state.
The first part of the Zondo Commission’s report into state capture was handed over to President Cyril Ramaphosa this week and has laid bare how the Public Finance Management Act was abused to allow private firms to loot.
Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said that existing oversight bodies were also destabilised and fragmented, leaving them vulnerable to overlaps and loopholes.
Despite legislation and agencies fighting corruption in the country, the lack of an oversight body specifically geared at graft within the private sector has contributed to the capture of the state.
CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), Wayne Duvenage, said that a number of private companies initiated and participated in corrupt arrangements due to the loopholes or the absence of internal safeguards.
“I think Zondo makes it very clear in his report where he believes that this process was opened to loopholes and needs some more oversight, specifically from civil society. We believe that we should not be having the abuse of boards, positions and appointments as we saw,” Duvenage said.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen said that few people or companies had been held responsible.
The Helen Suzman Foundation’s Helen Fritz said that while the president waits for the final two reports, South Africans can bring some of these entities to account.
“Those private entities are largely dependent on our goodwill. You as a private citizen who banks with one of the banks that’s been implicated can basically say ‘what are you doing to address these reports that suggest that you have been complicit in the crumbling of democracy?'” Fritz said.
The organisations said that criminal prosecution was vital if the commission was to be worth its billion rand price tag.
Source: EyeWitnessNews
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