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NGOs Promote Transparency Through Rewarding Excellence
An Interview with Rhoda Kadalie, Executive Director of South Africa's
Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust |
 Rhoda Kadalie is involved in human rights and social
development work and is executive director of the Impumelelo Innovations Award
Trust. She was previously a commissioner on the Human Rights Commission and the
director of the District Six land claims unit for the Commission on the
Restitution of Land Rights. The Impumelelo Trust rewards innovative government
and civil society initiatives that improve social service delivery in the
eradication of poverty. Kadalie holds an MA degree from the Institute for Social
Studies in the Netherlands. In 1999 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from
the University of Uppsala in Sweden. She received the human rights award from
the organization of South African Women for Women in 2003.
She is a
columnist for Business Day and was a lecturer in anthropology and founder of the
gender equity unit at the University of the Western Cape.
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 What are the challenges you face in your work to promote public
sector transparency in your region/country? |
 I’ll begin by illustrating how one of our own projects have
helped support transparency; the Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust, of which I
am the Director, rewards excellence in the public sector. One of its main goals
is to promote good governance and public trust in government. An excellent
public service is accountable, responsive to its citizens, and uses public
resources effectively. Post-independent democracies in Africa are notoriously
corrupt, as former liberators feel entitled to the state coffers on the grounds
that they were formerly excluded from democratic participation and government’s
resources. As a young democracy South Africa is experiencing growing corruption
in the public sector. What corruption does, real or perceived, is to disillusion
the public who puts its trust in government to deliver. Corruption diverts money
to private individuals when it could have been used to build roads, houses,
provide electricity and water and combat crime.
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| What methods and tools do you find effective for tackling
local transparency challenges? |
Impumelelo awards public sector projects only on the basis
of a thorough evaluation that is conducted on-site. The evaluator’s task is to
interview the project manager and his/her team, the beneficiaries of the
program, and the broader target community. Evaluation is an effective tool for
monitoring transparency and performance at the coalface. After a few years
Impumelelo conducts follow up case studies to track the progress of public
sector programs, issues of sustainability and lessons learnt from the project.
Writing up these case studies has become an effective tool in monitoring
government performance over a period of time. The case studies have become a
powerful tool for training public officials to replicate successful projects to
other contexts.
There are many agencies in South Africa that promote
transparency within government and governance. Within the Public Sector we have
Parliament and its attendant Parliamentary sub-committees such as the Joint
Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests, Standing Committee on Public
Accounts, the Joint Sub-Committee on Oversight and Accountability, the
Auditor-General, and the Public Protector. The problem with these organizations
is that they are mostly chaired by members of the ruling party or co-opted
members, and therefore lack credibility with the public. It is on record that
the Auditor General lied about the current “Arms Deal” case raging in parliament
and the media implicating the president and the deputy president. All of these
committees have buckled under pressure from the executive. It is for this reason
that civil society is extremely important as an independent monitor of
government performance and spending.
The Public Service Commission (PSC)
is a state institution enshrined in the Constitution (sections 195 and 196) and
set up as the custodian of good governance. Their vision is “to enhance
excellence in governance in the public service by promoting a professional and
ethical environment and adding value to a public administration that is
accountable, equitable, efficient, effective, corruption-free and responsive to
the needs of the people.” The job of the public service commission is to
investigate, monitor, evaluate, communicate and report on public administration.
The Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, 2004 is one of the Acts
promoted and monitored by the PSC. It also established a national hotline
inviting the public to report fraud and corruption (see www.psc.gov.za for more
information).
Within civil society many organizations exist that do
extensive research on corruption, monitor on a regular basis, mobilize the
public around certain issues and feed information to the media. Some engage in
test case litigation in the hope that legal precedents will be set. The media is
also a major source of information on corruption. Several programs exist that
focus specifically on exposing corrupt government and business practices. Carte
Blanche on M-Net has been excellent at exposing corrupt government officials in
Home Affairs bribing immigrants in exchange for identity books and passports; in
welfare pocketing social grants meant for pensioners and widows; in housing
using government subsidies to provide housing to friends and family; in
correctional services prison warders allowing all manner of crime to flourish in
jail in exchange for goods, such as drugs, weapons, money, etc. Another program,
Special Assignment, is excellent with investigative journalism and reporting.
Its claim to fame is to film corrupt public officials “in the act” of doing the
crime. It has won many awards and many officials have lost their jobs because of
this kind of exposure. It has become the program feared by business and
government because one is never sure where they will pop up next. The Mail &
Guardian, a weekly newspaper, claiming to be the alternative voice, has also
been very good at exposing corrupt government officials. Noseweek, a bi-monthly
magazine, is the premier corruption buster. Unfortunately, it has a small
circulation, is not well funded, but it is run by a lawyer and a small team of
journalists who sniff out news about the high and mighty. It is a ruthless
no-holds-barred publication and it has become the “investigator” of note
exposing business and government equally robustly.
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| How would you rate the success of civil society in
ensuring public sector transparency in your region/country? |
Civic watchdog bodies play an important role in holding
government accountable. They have the time and resources to research, monitor
performance, conduct surveys, educate officials, etc. They have not been good
however at exposing government with equal dedication except through reports,
publications, and surveys or documents often inaccessible to the public. The
reasons for this are many and varied. NGOs are reluctant to antagonize
government and those on whom they depend for funding. To many in the NGO sector
this is a job and many are aligned to the ruling paThe requested resource (/editor/default/) is not availablerty politically and feel
compromised about exposing the very party that they vote for. It is easier to
publish results in a report than to promote activism against corruption. This is
done by the more left-wing social movements at grassroots level like, for
example, the Anti-Privatization movement, the Landless People’s Movement and the
New Women’s Movement.
In South Africa, several powerful NGOs exist to
monitor corruption and ethical behavior in the public sector. Where these NGOs
are well resourced, they have been very good at keeping government and
government officials accountable. Unlike in the past, when corruption was
endemic to racial domination, today corruption increasingly becomes the
headlines of our newspapers. Whistle blowers are increasingly taking up the
challenge to expose their organizations regardless of the risk. Many have lost
their jobs for their courage but many have also learnt to seek help from NGOs
like the ODAC, PSAM, the Human Rights
Commission, the Gender Commission and the Public Protector. The Public Service
Accountability Monitor is based at the University at Rhodes, in the Eastern
cape. It is based in one of the most corrupt and poorest provinces in South
Africa. Their activities include case monitoring, performance monitoring,
surveys, civic empowerment and advocacy work.
The Institute for Security
Studies is a nationally-based NGO that has the Umqol uphandle SA Corruption
Briefing as a key component of their work. They have just launched the Southern African Information Portal on
Corruption. This portal provides researchers, policy makers and civil
society concerned with combating corruption, with information and provides users
with a searchable database, detailed case studies of attempts to tackle
corruption, and much more. The Open
Democracy Advice Centre promotes open and transparent democracy. It fosters
a culture of corporate and government accountability and supports citizens with
two key pieces of legislation: The Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000
and The Protected Disclosures Act 2000. ODAC trains civil society organizations
to access the laws; they litigate where necessary; promote law reform advocacy,
and promote public information campaigns. The
Institute for Democracy in South Africa runs two organizations that promote
transparency: PIMS (Political Information & Monitoring Service) promotes
good ethical governance and advocates social justice. BIS (Budget Information
Service) uses data and budget information to analyze revenue and expenditure
impacts on the lives of the poor. Its broader mission is to advocate for
sustainable democracy, poverty alleviation and equity, and the realization of
rights through its research.
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| What safeguards can be implemented to curb political
abuse of civic engagement? |
In a young democracy like South Africa citizens need to be
educated on a continual basis as to what their rights are and what agencies
exist to help them expose corruption. Citizens need to learn how to use
parliament to good effect, to write submissions, to lobby, to mobilize and
demonstrate when their rights are violated.
Appropriate legislation is
one of the first steps to addressing political abuse. South Africa has all the
relevant legislation and watchdog bodies to enforce public accountability as
listed above. Enforcement of the law without fear or favor and the protection of
whistle blowers is key to the success in combating corruption. Political
opposition parties have an important role to play in exposing corruption, in
holding state institutions accountable to their mandates, and to expose and
provide information on the nature of public abuse. The courts and auditing
bodies are central in exposing bad practices and it is the media’s duty to
report and provide vital information to the public on the nature of the abuse.
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| Does civil society involvement always yield good
results? |
Civil society has a direct interest in exposing corruption
and in promoting transparency. The public suffers when public funds are
misdirected and when resources are diverted elsewhere. Poverty escalates,
infrastructure remains undeveloped, services are poor or inadequate, and
institutions collapse. Public disgruntlement leads to mistrust in government and
can have all kinds of negative ramifications. NGO partnerships with civil
society create powerful countervailing forces against government abuse and
neglect. When public trust is eroded and citizens lose confidence in government,
democracy and its institutions become weakened considerably. Similarly, if the
public finds it can play a direct role in safeguarding democracy, it will do so
enthusiastically as demonstrated by the Participatory Budget Programs in Brazil
and China.
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The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available
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 How did Development Gateway members respond to our Public Sector
Transparency Survey questions?
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| How does global transparency measure up? Charts and graphs on
how transparency measures up. Click here. |
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