Corruption Watch - a victory for Municipal workers

The largest Local Government Union (SAMWU) congratulates its Federation COSATU and the rest of Civil Society for taking the decision - as announced by comrade Zwelinzima Vavi - to launch the long awaited Corruption Watch, though the date for the launch has not been announced, we do still feel that congratulations are in order.

Corruption Watch will come in the form of an interactive website, sms-line and call-centre to report corruption in both the Public and Private Sectors.

SAMWU will participate fully in assisting this structure to investigate Local Government and all of its entities. This is a victory for all workers and a stern warning to all those who are abusing public funds - this initiative will undoubtedly intensify our battle to cut out the cancer of corruption from the Local Government sector - as we have been fighting a long and tedious uphill battle with regards to rooting out corruption from possibly the most corrupt sphere of Government, with the least oversight.

SAMWU has been in the forefront of fighting corruption at Municipal level, and long before it was politically acceptable to do so. Many of our leaders at local level were vilified, often victimised, and some physically attacked for courageously exposing corrupt practices.

Despite the threats to their livelihoods and reputations, many of our comrades persisted because they felt that it was not just a crime in the strict sense of the term, but because corruption has been a decisive factor in thwarting effective service delivery to many of our most impoverished communities.

But our members were only able to expose the crooked tenderpreneurs, the rampant cronyism, politically convenient manoeuvring and nepotism by having access to documents, and being able to use them to alert greater authorities that malpractices were being committed.

Though Municipal Workers welcome the establishment of Corruption Watch we also believe that the State must be ruthless with those who lost their moral compass and as comrade Vavi said, at the National Anti-Corruption Summit on Thursday in Sandton "If Government only implemented its own resolutions on dealing with corruption, we would be living in a much better place."

Statement issued by Tahir Sema, SAMWU National Media and Publicity Officer, December 9 2011

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