Tshwane/Pretoria

We the delegates drawn from various sectors in South African society do acknowledge that corruption is an obstacle to development and that all sectors represented here should unite in preventing and combating corruption. We recognise that during the years of struggle against apartheid, South Africa was a fragmented country and the majority of its people were subjected to a politically, socially, economically, and morally corrupt regime. In 1994 the Government that was elected democratically by the majority of people embarked upon a programme to reconstruct and develop South Africa to the benefit of all its people. The programme of growth, reconstruction and development was fraught with obstacles and legacies created by the apartheid regime such as the prevalence of corruption and poor service delivery.

We heed the President’s call to unite in the fight against corruption and recommit ourselves to this cause. We commend the positive progress that has been made in implementing the resolutions made in the first anti-corruption summit. However, we recognise that there are still a number of outstanding challenges, which we need to tackle together.

In the fight against corruption we commit ourselves to ensure that the South African legal framework fully complies with international conventions of the UN, AU, and SADC in respect of corruption.

We therefore as the basis of a national strategy to fight corruption resolve to implement the following resolutions:

1. Ethics, Awareness and Prevention

1. To promote leadership in all sectors of society that is committed to the creation of a culture of integrity and to restore confidence in the fight against corruption.
2. To foster a greater culture of transparency and accountability in all sectors.
3. To encourage whistle blowing and reporting in all sectors, and strengthen measures to protect all persons from victimisation where they expose corrupt and unethical practises.
4. Ethics training must form a critical part of the ethics and awareness programme of all sectors, including incorporation in the school curricula.
5. Values and principles of Codes of conducts of the various sectors must be established, promoted and enforced through a defined programme.
6. To conduct a joint research programme to audit the state of professional ethics in each sector.

2. Combating

1. To promote, support and strengthen co-operation and co-ordination between and within the different sectors.
2. To ensure better co-ordination among the different agencies responsible for combating corruption.
3. To acknowledge the role-played by government in the establishment of a database for blacklisting, and to further support this initiative by the creation of a common database for blacklisting across all sectors. A mechanism for information sharing across all sectors should be developed.
4. To strengthen capacity for the implementation of anti-corruption legislation, at institutions of service delivery especially at Provincial and Local government.
5. Where corruption is endemic, initiatives such as the Joint Anti-corruption Task Team should be instituted to combat corruption, particularly at Provincial and Local government.
6. The shortcomings of the Protected Disclosure Act should be addressed and resolved by the Law Commission and a report to be provided to the Parliamentary Committees on Justice by the end of 2005.
7. To encourage regulation of post public sector employment to ensure a "cooling off" period to avoid conflict of interest.
8. To strengthen the capacity of the law enforcement agencies to identify and recover assets obtained through illicit or corrupt means in line with Chapter 5 of the UN Convention Against Corruption.

3. Oversight, Transparency and Accountability

1. All oversight structures at Provincial and National levels should be strengthened.
2. Establish a joint research initiative to evaluate the implementation by the Executive of resolutions made by Parliament and its committees pertaining to corruption.
3. To review the Financial Disclosure Framework of public representatives, and senior public managers and where necessary to ensure better management through greater compliance, timeous submission, improved procedures and the enforcement of penalties/sanctions in the absence of compliance.
4. The Financial Disclosure framework should be extended to include senior management in Local Government, parastatals and other public officials with designated responsibilities in procurement.
5. Encourage Business and Civil Society to apply financial disclosure provisions to senior people at director level in their sectors.

 

4. National Anti-corruption Forum (NACF)

We recommit our support to the NACF as an appropriate multi-sectoral structure to drive a joint national anti-corruption strategy.

1. We support the initiatives taken to strengthen the secretariat but more resources are needed to implement the programme of action of the NACF.
2. The relevant resolutions of this Summit should be translated into a programme of action of the NACF within 3 months.
3. The NACF must establish tasks teams to implement the action plan.
4. The NACF will coordinate a national cross-sectoral educational campaign to promote whistle blowing and the reporting of corruption in all sectors.
5. The Executive of the NACF should meet quarterly and the forum as a whole should meet annually between bi-annual summits.
6. Each sector should have a plan of action with regard to representation of the NACF within 3 months of the Summit. The NACF will strive to ensure participation of the professions.
7. Civil Society will prepare a research report on crimes of corruption under Apartheid and present these to the NACF for consideration within 6 months.
8. The NACF will encourage the participation of all National and Provincial constitutional and oversight bodies in appropriate events.

INTRODUCTION

1. The Second National Anti-corruption Summit adopted various resolutions related to the role and functioning of the National Anti-corruption Forum (NACF) and the development and implementation of a National Anti-corruption Programme (NAP). The NAP is combined joint and sectoral projects that stem from the resolutions of the Summit as well as other projects initiated by the NACF.
2. This discussion document contains proposals on the role and functioning of the NACF as well as the approach for implementing the NAP.

THE ROLE AND FUNCTIONING OF THE NACF

3. The Second National Anti-corruption Summit confirmed the NACF as the vehicle for building a national consensus on the fight against corruption. Summit also adopted resolutions that direct the meetings, composition and structures of the NACF. The following builds on these resolutions, taking the NACF’s founding memorandum of understanding into account, and introduces accountability measures.

The National Anti-corruption Forum

4. The NACF is comprised of high-level representatives of the business, civil society and public sectors. This level of representation is symbolic of the collective leadership being provided in the fight against corruption. The NACF is accountable to Parliament.
5. The NACF meets once a year to consider-

1. a report on the implementation of the NAP, including reports from the various sectors; and
2. the annual report on the work of the NACF that will be submitted to Parliament.

1. The full NACF attends the annual meeting and part of this meeting is also opened to allow more entities within the sectors to receive progress reports and make inputs. Although the NACF meets formally once a year, the NACF will have an agreed and set programme of roundtable discussions and workshops that will allow for regular information exchange and wider participation of the sectors.
2. In order for the NACF to maintain the moral and symbolic authority required to build the national consensus against corruption, the leadership of the sectors needs to be consistent, representative of constituencies in the sectors and sufficiently high-level. As such sectors are represented by persons who hold leadership positions in the respective sectors.

The Executive Committee of the NACF

3. The EXCO of the NACF consists of two representatives from each of the three sectors. The EXCO is convened by the Chairperson of the NACF, on a quarterly basis, supported by the Secretariat. The EXCO provides an account of its work at the annual NACF meeting. The Implementation Committee will attend the meetings of the EXCO for purposes of the NAP.
4. The role of EXCO is to-

1. monitor implementation of the NAP;
2. provide direction to the Implementation Committee of the NAP;
3. decide on matters related to the NACF and national and international anti-corruption events; and
4. share information relevant to the NACF.

1. The Implementation Committee consists of the coordinators of the programmes of action of the three sectors, namely the Director-General: Public Service and Administration (Public Sector), the CEO: Business Against Crime (Business Sector) and the Convenor of the Civil Society Network Against Corruption (Civil Society Sector). The Implementation Committee is accountable to the EXCO.
2. This Committee will initially be convened by the DG:DPSA until a chairperson has been elected. The Secretariat will support the Implementation Committee.
3. The role and functions of the Implementation Committee are to-

1. develop the project proposals for implementation of joint projects of the NACF;
2. implement the projects of the NAP;
3. obtain funding for joint projects as well as sectoral assistance;
4. appoint task teams to implement projects of the NAP; and
5. monitor the work of task teams.

1. The Implementation Committee will appoint multi-sectoral task teams to implement the joint projects of the NAP. These task teams will be the supported by the Secretariat. The sectoral coordinator of each sector is responsible to appoint task teams to execute sectoral projects.

Implementation Schedule

2. The Implementation Committee will develop a schedule reflecting project names, time frame for implementation and progress per project. The EXCO of the NACF will use the schedule to monitor the implementation of the NAP and the Schedule will appear on the Website of the NACF. The Secretariat will ensure that the implementation schedule is updated regularly.