Page 47 - IRMSA Risk Report 2020

EXPERT OPINION

THULANI MKHUNGO
CHIEF RISK OFFICER, SPECIAL INVESTIGATING UNIT (SIU)
Inability to root out deeply entrenched corruption is getting worse. Key impediments that prevent South Africa from dealing with this risk effectively are:
• not having an effective national corruption prevention plan/strategy;
• back lock of corruption cases at the judiciary system;
• none reporting of corruption cases on time.
The key indicators (flags) that I regard as indicative of how this risk may play out in future are informed by the Anti-Corruption Task Team programme
4 that is convened by the SIU which is responsible for the Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum, which embarked on an intensive exercise to conduct
Corruption Risk Assessments in various sectors. Under Programme 4 the SIU has identified sectors that are vulnerable to fraud and corruption. These
have been identified through collaboration with other stakeholders and have been informed by Auditor General and SCOPA reports. The health sector
was identified as one of the vulnerable sectors that require immediate attention due to its high exposure to fraud and corrupt activities and since it was
established in July 2018, to date it the statistics below highlight the health sector is a key risk and extremely vulnerable to corruption.

The key interventions that I believe should be made to address this risk effectively going forward are:
• Focussing on the vulnerable sectors, which are those that have a high vulnerability to the manifestation of corrupt activities that could open the
development of a country or functioning of government up to potential exploitation.
• Once all the vulnerabilities and risk are identified per sector, then to develop a national corruption prevention plan.

The top 10 vulnerable sectors are in order of priority:
1. Health Sector
2. State owned enterprises
3. Local Government
4. Construction
5. Finance
6. Energy
7. Education
8. Tobacco & Alcohol
9. Real Estate
10. Sports & Recreation
The objectives of the development and implementation of the National
Corruption Prevention Plan/Strategy are:
• Objective 1: Identify priority and high risk vulnerable sectors to
corruption
• Objective 2: Define National Corruption Prevention Programme
(NCPP) roadmap
• Objective 3: Design and develop NCPP implementation tools and
systems
• Objective 4: Pilot NCPP roll-out
• Objective 5: Set-up and deploy NCPP in Health Sector and state owned
entities
• Objective 6: Manage, monitor and report on NCPP
• Objective 7: Handover and support of NCPP implementation

There is a great opportunity when we focus on the sectors that are vulnerable
to corruption and implement the NCPP that success will be achieved in
these sectors. Entities (public, private, civil society) that are active in the
prevention of fraud and corruption well are Corruption Watch, OUTA and
Section 27 (Civil Societies) – voicing out corruption.

Lastly, we can see, since the resent workings of, amongst others, the Zondo
Commission on State Capture, an increase in awareness of fraud and
corruption and the cases reported to the SIU.