South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) has called on anyone with evidence that its members are involved in reported cash-for-jobs scandal to come forward calling the practice “sickening”.
The City Press has revealed that Sadtu officials are said to be selling positions for a minimum of R30 000 to teachers in KwaZulu-Natal, the North West and in Limpopo.
Sadtu’s general secretary Mugwena Maluleke says if any member is found to be involved, the union will take strong action.
“We can’t allow any officials in our union to be involved in crime because it’s sickening to make a teacher or member of the public to pay for a post, what kind of people are we in this country to allow such things?”
Furthermore, Sadtu says anyone who sells jobs for cash is acting as an individual and must not bring the union into disrepute by using its name.
Maluleke added: “We must make sure we root out corruption in the Department of Education and Sadtu is leading in that area.”
Swedish mobile telecoms equipment maker Ericsson paid 116 million Swedish crowns ($18 million) to a commercial agent, money which was then used to bribe Greek officials to secure a deal for Ericsson in 1999, Swedish radio reported on Wednesday.
In an interview, former Ericsson employee Liss-Olof Nenzell told Swedish radio that “politicians, generals and high-ranking state officials” had received the Ericsson money.
Ericsson said in a statement that it had paid money to a commercial agent, but did not know what became of it.
The Swedish company used to employ local commercial agents in many countries in a bid to increase sales.
“We have zero tolerance for bribes and corruption. At the time, we used agents, but we don’t anymore because it is a system that lacks transparency,” it said in an emailed statement.
“We know that a payment was made to an agent, but we don’t know what happened with the money after that. We really hope that the money wasn’t used for bribes, but we don’t know for sure.”
The Greek order was for the Ericsson airborne surveillance system Erieye and was worth 4.9 billion Swedish crowns ($759 million). Ericsson has subsequently sold its defense business to Swedish group Saab.
Alf Johansson, chief public prosecutor at the National Anti-Corruption unit of the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said he was looking into the matter and had asked Greek investigators for information.
He added, however, that he was only interested in potential crimes committed after July 1, 2004, as crimes before that date would have passed the statute of limitations, meaning they could not be prosecuted.
Antonis Kantas, deputy armaments chief at the Greek Defense Ministry between 1997 and 2002, has admitted to taking $16 million in bribes relating to arms deals with foreign companies and mentioned Ericsson in connection with bribes in his court testimony.
Corruption has now turned Second Beach, in Port St Johns, Eastern Cape, into the deadliest beach in the world. An Austrian tourist was killed there at the weekend in a shark attack.
Eight people have been killed by sharks at this Wild Coast holiday destination in the past five years. The beach reportedly has no lifeguards to man designated areas because Port St Johns municipality did not renew their contracts.
The money has gone instead to fund expensive lifestyles and German cars.
Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism CEO Luxolo Rubushe said that Port St Johns had the highest number of shark-related deaths in the world.
The 72-year-old victim was cooling off in shallow water just a few metres from the crowded beach when he was dragged into the sea.
Beachgoers, including his wife, watched in horror.
Siphesihle Mangcotywa, 26, said the man had been swimming with three others.
“Suddenly people started screaming and running towards the shore and the next thing there was just blood in the water next to the man. He did not even scream but tried to swim towards the shore. His three companions were about a metre away and watched helplessly. They also ran to the shore,” he said.
The man’s body washed up about an hour and half later.
There is massive evidence of corruption in schools, a Corruption Watch report revealed on Thursday.
The organisation said 12% of reports on corruption it had received since its inception in 2012 related to alleged corruption in schools. Corruption Watch spokesperson Patience Mkosana said her organisation received reports of corruption directly from the public and then followed them up through door-to-door investigations.
The reports indicated that principals, school governing body (SGB) members and, to an extent, teachers, manipulated and abused the school system to enrich themselves. The concerns ranged from abuse of public funds received for infrastructure maintenance and upgrading, and sourcing of learning materials, to funding of feeding schemes.
The organisation conducted a survey after receiving reports on corruption at schools. It was conducted through social networking platform Mxit and sampled 3284 respondents aged between 13 and 34. Fifty-three percent of this group believed corruption in schools
was on the rise.
The Eastern Cape was the province perceived to have the most corrupt principals, according to 61% of respondents
Almost half of the respondents were pupils at school or at a further education and training college, while 31% were family members of a school pupil. At least 30% of pupils surveyed were from public schools and 8% were from private schools. There was no major difference between corruption at public schools and corruption at private schools.
Favours for better marks and the selling of exam papers were the most common forms of bribery. The selling of test and exam papers was a particular problem in Mpumalanga, where 23% of respondents believed it happened.
The misuse of school money or property was especially prevalent in the Free State, according to 30% of respondents, and the North West (31%). The main person behind such corruption, according to 47% of the respondents, was the school principal. Thirty-three percent said it was teachers and 14% claimed an SGB member was the culprit.
The Eastern Cape was the province perceived to have the most corrupt principals, according to 61% of respondents. The Free State had the worst teachers, and the Northern Cape the most corrupt SGB members, according to respondents.
When a retired Army colonel and an enlisted soldier from Albuquerque, N.M. were charged last year with defrauding the National Guard Bureau out of about $12,000 the case drew little public attention. But it’s now become clear that the two men are among the roughly 800 soldiers accused of bilking American taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars in what a U.S. senator is calling “one of the biggest fraud investigations in Army history.”
The wide-ranging criminal probe centers around an Army recruiting program that had been designed to help the Pentagon find new soldiers during some of the bloodiest days of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The program went off the rails, investigators believe, after hundreds of soldiers engaged in a kickback scheme that allowed them to potentially embezzle huge quantities of money without anyone in the government noticing. In one case, a single soldier may have collected as much as $275,000 for making “referrals” to help the Army meet its recruiting goals, according to USA Today, which first reported the story Monday.
The military’s failure to spot, or stop, the wrongdoing will be the focus of what is expected to be a highly contentious hearing Tuesday before the Senate’s Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight. The committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has summoned several of the National Guard officials who were in power at the time the alleged wrongdoing was taking place.
The numbers of soldiers and money involved are staggering.
An Army internal audit has discovered that 1,200 recruiters had received payments that were potentially fraudulent. Another 2,000 recruiting assistants had received payments that were suspicious. More than 200 officers remain under investigation, according to McCaskill’s office. There are currently 555 active investigations involving 840 people.
Trouble in the recruiting program has been acknowledged previously, but the full scope and the results of the service’s own internal investigation of the program have not previously been disclosed. In the past, Army officials overseeing the program and a contractor who worked with the service on it, Docupak, insisted that accounts of potential fraud in it were greatly exaggerated, congressional officials said in a memo distributed to the media Monday. About 200 agents with the service’s Criminal Investigative Command are now examining the program’s records, and will review the actions of more than 106,000 people who received money through the program. That work will likely take until 2016, officials said.
A Defense Department official acknowledged that a lack of proper military oversight contributed to the problems.
“I think it was human greed, and I think it’s the cascading effects of contractors’ lack of supervision, as well as the Defense Department’s lack of supervision,” the official told Foreign Policy, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the probe.
Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained mission expense records and passenger manifests from the United States Air Force related to the June 21-27, 2011, trip taken by First Lady Michelle Obama, her family and her staff to South Africa and Botswana.
Judicial Watch obtained the documents pursuant to an August 19, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Air Force (No. 11-1496)). Judicial Watch is investigating the purpose and itinerary of the trip as well as a breakdown of the costs to taxpayers.
On June 28, 2011, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request seeking the mission taskings, transportation records, and passenger manifests for Michelle Obama’s Africa trip. Documents were only provided after Judicial Watch filed suit:
According to U.S. Department of Defense’s published hourly rates for the C-32A aircraft used for the trip, Judicial Watch calculated the total cost to American taxpayers was $424,142 for use of the aircraft (34.8 flight hours x $12,188 per hour). (The C-32 is a specially configured military version of the Boeing 757.) Other expenses – meals (off the plane), transportation, security, various services, etc. – have yet to be disclosed.
The passenger manifests confirm the presence of Obama’s daughter’s, Malia and Sasha on the trip. The two girls are listed as “Senior Staff.” The manifests also list Mrs. Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, and niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson, as well Mrs. Obama’s makeup and hairstylist (Carl Ray and Johnny Wright).
The expense records also show $928.44 was spent for “bulk food” purchases on flight. Overall, during the trip, 192 meals were served for the 21 passengers on board.
The professed purpose of Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana was to encourage young people living in the two growing democracies to become involved in national affairs. Her scheduled stops were in Pretoria and Cape Town, and in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.
The trip also included such tourist events as visits to historical landmarks and museums, plus a nonworking chance to send time with Nelson Mandela, a meeting that Mrs. Obama described as “surreal.”
The trip ended with a private family safari at a South African game reserve before the group returned to Washington on June 27.“This trip was as much an opportunity for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a trip to conduct government business,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“This junket wasted tax dollars and the resources of our overextended military. No wonder we had to sue to pry loose this information.”
North West Premier Thandi Modise’s office says the purchase of a R1.3 million vehicle was above board and ordered before Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced austerity measures.
Modise recently purchased a BMW 750i despite Gordhan’s announcement last year that excessive spending on cars, travel, accommodation and other luxuries would be curbed.
Her office insists that the decision to purchase the vehicle was taken by the Department of Public Works and was below the 70 percent limit prescribed by the ministerial handbook.
Modise’s spokesperson Lesiba Kgwele says it is unfair to blame the premier who had no choice in the matter.
“The question of morality goes way beyond this particular transaction. In this particular instance, we want to insist that the premier didn’t defy any cabinet directives.”
The Polokwane High Court dismissed EFF leader Julius Malema’s application to have charges against him dropped on Thursday.
Judge Ephraim Makgoba said the case against him would go ahead next year as scheduled, unless the National Prosecuting Authority decided to drop the charges against him.
The expelled former ANC Youth League leader faces charges of fraud, corruption, money-laundering, and racketeering.
It is alleged that he made nearly R4 million from corrupt activities.
Earlier it was reported by Sapa that Dali Mpofu had arrived at the Polokwane High Court on Thursday to support corruption-accused EFF leader Julius Malema.
Sporting a red Economic Freedom Fighters beret, red shirt and black jacket, Mpofu joined other Malema supporters waiting near the court entrance for Malema to arrive.
Mpofu is the lawyer representing the wounded and arrested Marikana mineworkers at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the shooting at the Lonmin platinum mine near Rustenburg last year, when 34 people were killed.
He recently announced he had resigned from the African National Congress to join the EFF.
A large contingent of international and local journalists also gathered outside the court where Malema was due to launch a bid to have charges against him dropped.
Earlier on Thursday, hundreds of Economic Freedom Fighters members blew vuvuzelas and some waved knobkerries as they chanted songs against President Jacob Zuma.
“Muso wa Zuma reya o menola [we will unseat Zuma’s government],” they sang.
Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, with streets around the court closed.
The expelled former ANC Youth League leader faces charges of fraud, corruption, money-laundering, and racketeering.
It is alleged that he made nearly R4 million from corrupt activities.
Malema is out on R10,000 bail. His four co-accused, who are his business associates, are out on bail of R40,000 each.
On Thursday, the EFF leader was expected to make representations to the judge in an attempt to have the charges against him dropped.
The State alleges that the five misrepresented themselves to the Limpopo roads and transport department, leading to a R52m contract being awarded to On-Point Engineering.
According to court papers, Malema had business ties with Lesiba Gwangwa, one of the co-accused and a director of On-Point Engineering.
Malema’s Ratanang Family Trust was an indirect shareholder in On-Point.
The department paid the company R43m. According to the charge sheet, Malema substantially benefited from this payment, using it to buy a farm and a Mercedes-Benz. – Sapa
A Malawian minister on Thursday criticised Western donors for withholding aid worth $150 million after the government exposed corruption, saying it could prompt other African leaders to stop fighting graft fearing they will lose funds.
“The government does not understand the decision taken by donors to withhold support because the (Malawi President) Joyce Banda administration has exposed fraud and corruption in the civil service,” Information Minister Brown Mpinganjira said at a ceremony to launch a community radio station for the main Protestant church in Malawi.
“Instead of people supporting the president for exposing corruption, they are busy withholding support. With this do you see some African leaders exposing corruption in their countries?” he asked.
His comments were the first official reaction to Western donors shutting down aid. Malawi depends on donors to bankroll up to 40 percent of its development budget.
Mpinganjira, a veteran politician and unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2004, said: “This could have been a time when all wellwishers could come forward and support President Banda since she had thrown a first stone.”
Donors under the Common Approach to Budgetary Support (CABS) have said they will not disburse pledged aid until February after an International Monetary Fund review. They have also warned that the next aid tranche depends on government efforts to fight the rampant corruption.
“We will not be able to resume support through government systems until we have a clear assurance, independently verified, that our resources are all being used for their intended purpose,” said Sara Sanyahumbi, a British diplomat who heads the donor grouping which includes European countries, the European Union and the World Bank.
Malawi has been rocked by widespread corruption, losing millions of funds to theft by mostly civil servants which the government blames on financial loopholes.
Donors have called on the poor nation to act swiftly on the plunder of public resources, known as Capital Hill Cashgate scandal.
Vice President Khumbo Kachali has said loopholes in the state’s payment system have seen state workers “siphoning huge sums of money using private companies with no contracts with government.” – AFP
It is time for government to shape the country’s future decisively and stop blaming the past, former ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa said on Tuesday.
“We are… a government, and placing the blame on the past, apartheid, race, and other external factors does not wash anymore. It is time for solutions of which we are the architects and it is time to shape our future decisively,” Phosa said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation conference in Johannesburg.
“Let us begin by making sure that every rand of public money that is spent makes a tangible impact on development and upliftment of our people.”
Corruption and non-service delivery were serious concerns.
“If we fail to address the income gap and alleviate poverty, we will have other consequences. Ours will be a perpetually volatile society, open to flare-ups from time to time, and growing disenchantment among the voters with those they have voted into power.”
Phosa said many in the ruling African National Congress had faced charges of corruption and had brought the party into disrepute in “a devastating and shocking fashion.”
“It has never been ANC policy for anyone to steal public money. Anyone doing that satisfies his or her own greed at the expense of the nation, and to the lasting detriment of a party that commanded the respect of the entire globe.”
The corruption scourge would lead to the decline of the ANC and ultimately render its history “meaningless”.
“If we want to avoid being consigned to the dustbin of history, we must be demonstrably more decisive, more transparent and totally unforgiving in how we deal with those who steal public money, or abuse positions of trust,” said Phosa. – Sapa
Former police chief and convicted criminal Jackie Selebi, who was released on medical parole in 2012 in a reportedly critically ill state, was photographed shopping in Pretoria, Beeld reported on Monday.
He was chauffeured in his luxury BMW 6-series to a shopping centre in Monument Park to buy the Sunday papers.
Selebi spoke to a few shoppers before he bought his newspaper.
He walked without any assistance, and, according to Beeld, seemed to be in good health.
When reporters phoned him a few hours later to enquire about his health, he said he felt a little better and he hoped his condition would improve further.
Selebi said his illness kept him at home and prevented him from driving.
The medical parole board on July 20 2012 decided that Selebi could be released because he was suffering from irreversible kidney failure, high blood pressure and diabetes.
His sudden decline into ill health surprised independent doctors, who said that kidney failure was normally a disease with slow progression.
At the time of his release on medical parole, Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said Selebi was being sent home because his department had limited capacity to provide care for terminally ill patients.
Selebi was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on August 3, 2010 for taking bribes from convicted drug dealer Glenn Agliotti.
He collapsed at his house in December 2011 after his final appeal failed.
Selebi’s comfortable release from prison contrasts sharply with the case of white prisoner and former Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis who has done 20 years of his sentence already. Although Derby-Lewis has been officially recommended for both medical and ordinary parole, the minister of correctional services refuses to release him. – Sapa/praag
A North West policeman has allegedly raped a woman in Sannieshof, police said on Friday.
Brigadier Thulani Ngubane said the detective constable allegedly raped the 29-year-old woman on Thursday.
The woman came was in Sannieshof to attend the court case of her boyfriend, who faced charges of housebreaking.
“It is alleged… the victim sent the investigating officer a text message that she wanted to speak to him in connection with the case,” he said.
“When she met with the… officer in Sannieshof, it is alleged that the officer misled her into believing he was going to assist her with the case of her Tanzanian boyfriend.”
Ngubane said the officer took the woman to his grandmother’s house and allegedly raped her three times.
“The official has not been arrested yet as he is still at large.”
It was also alleged that the officer asked the woman for money to assist her in the case.
Ngubane said the matter had been reported to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
“Once the member is arrested and charged he will be suspended immediately without pay, once all has been verified.”
North West police commissioner Lt-Gen Zukiswa Mbombo condemned the incident.
“We will never rest in our laurels as the police management in this province, until we clean all those hyenas who hide in the beautiful blue while they want to scavenge on innocent citizens and dent the good image of the police,” she said. – Sapa
Twenty members of the SA Police Service have been suspended in the past two months, the police said on Sunday.
“The actions of the employees were investigated and, based on prima facie evidence, disciplinary action was taken against them,” spokesman Lt-Gen Solomon Makgale said.
The suspended employees include eight police officers and 12 administration officials, said Makgale.
Makgale said that over the past two months 191 members of the police were arrested for their alleged involvement in various crimes such as murder, rape, corruption and fraud.
“An instruction has been issued to make it compulsory for members of the SAPS to regularly declare when they are facing criminal investigations.”
Makgale said that police management was also in the process of verifying the academic qualifications of employees.
“Employees whose academic records differ from what they have declared to SAPS will be dealt with and may be investigated criminally depending on the circumstances,” said Makgale.
Agang SA has welcomed the decision by the police to verify the qualifications of all policemen and women.
“The levels of public trust and confidence in the capabilities of the South African Police Service are so low,” spokesman Thabo Leshilo said in a statement.
Leshilo said Agang SA urged the police leadership to speed up the probe to verify the qualifications, especially those in leadership positions.
Makgale said the police has dismissed 930 of its members over the past 17 months. – Sapa
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South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) has called on anyone with evidence that its members are involved in reported cash-for-jobs scandal to come forward calling the practice “sickening”.
