| By Bokwe |Feb 17th, 2010

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says the government’s procurement systems are to change to ensure greater transparency and accountability to combat corruption.
Presenting his maiden budget to the National Assembly, Gordhan said a major site of both wastage and inefficiency was in the procurement system. Even where there was absolutely no corruption, contracts were sometimes given to people who could not implement them, and so houses were left without roofs, roads crumbled when it rained, water schemes broke down, and school books failed to get delivered.
“Mister Speaker, corruption is an ever-present threat to our ambitions. All South Africans must constantly and consciously work to root out this cancer.
“If we are to address this scourge, we need improved management capability, governance, enforcement, and oversight in government, and in the business sector,” he said.
Included in the methods to stop corruption will be:
Additional funds had been allocated to bolster efforts to strengthen supply chain management, and the relevant government departments had intensified efforts to bring perpetrators of tender fraud to book.
Data matching, the practice of comparing, for example, taxpayer data with social grants registers or housing waiting lists, would become a regular feature of a systematic approach to minimise abuse.
“We are starting to see the early results of these efforts — officials have been disciplined and others fired, five people linked to supply chain fraud were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal last week, and more cases have been handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority.
“We are expecting more arrests very soon. An inter-ministerial committee on corruption has been established chaired by Minister [in the Presidency Collins] Chabane, to co-ordinate government’s efforts to stamp out corruption,” Gordhan said.