Police seen as being ‘the most corrupt’
Report by Sapa
Source: The Herald Online
Cape Town – THE police are perceived as being the most corrupt public service officials in the country, a government survey has found.
The government yesterday officially launched its Country Corruption Assessment Report on South Africa.
But it warned the document had “serious shortcomings” and was based on inadequate data.
The 148-page report has taken two years to prepare and is a joint effort between government and the Southern African regional office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Among its main findings are that corruption appears to have increased in South Africa, and both private citizens and business perceive the police to be the most corrupt public service officials in the country.
According to the report, “there is no doubt that South Africans perceive that there is a lot of corruption”.
It says 41 per cent of those surveyed saw corruption as “one of the most important problems which should be addressed”, while 39 per cent believed it to be a “common occurrence”.
Eleven per cent of households surveyed said they had experienced corruption, compared to two per cent in a similar survey three years earlier.
“The public servants most associated with corruption, both for the citizens and businesses, appear to be the police.
“All surveys indicate that police officers are the most vulnerable to corruption, followed by customs, local government, home affairs and court officials.
“The majority of those surveyed felt that government was not doing enough to combat corruption. However, this perception is not uniform across ethnic groups and is held mainly by specific communities,” the report says.
Commenting on the report, Deputy Provincial and Local Government Minister Ntombazana Botha said the fight against corruption was “one of government’s top priorities”.
However, the report suffered from some “serious shortcomings”.
“We don’t have adequate data . . . there are things we still need to put in a report like this,” Miss Botha said.
The report, which aims to “serve as a baseline to measure progress in combating and preventing corruption”, says no central database on corruption exists in South Africa.
