A stimulus package must be monitored by forensic experts to prevent looting

21 April 2020

In the face of a growing economic and social welfare catastrophe, government is finally preparing an economic stimulus package.

While this is welcomed, it is of grave concern that we have already witnessed the looting of food parcels for the most vulnerable in our society, allegations of a corrupt IT tender in Gauteng Province, and photos of a few food relief items costing more than R1200.

This is why I am calling on President Ramaphosa to ensure that any measures to generate an economic stimulus package, must be met with strong measures to be taken to ensure transparency and accountability.

Specifically, I am calling for a panel of independent, external forensic experts to be appointed to form a panel who will monitor that every cent of public money to be spent in mitigation of Covid-19.

Such panel should be given extensive powers to obtain documentation relating to appointments, to investigate and to regularly report back their findings to the South African people.

This is all part of a pattern where the ANC uses state resources and the suffering of poor and desperate South African to personally profit. A party that is prepared to steal from the late Nelson Mandela’s funeral fund, while the country mourned, will not think twice about stealing from any form of stimulus fund.

A reality, which I experienced first-hand in Johannesburg, is that the ANC is corrupt to its core. When South Africans face a health, economic and humanitarian crisis, members of the ANC see the Disaster Regulations as an opportunity to loot.

These kinds of measures would ensure that the public can have confidence that the large sums of money dedicated to combatting the impact of Covid-19, is serving this purpose and not enriching politically connected members of the ruling party.

I am also calling upon the unions to demand this level of transparency, given that a largest portion of the money that is likely to be used for a stimulus package is from government employees pension funds. South African civil servants about to retire cannot afford to be subjected to a country bankrupted by a democratic government. Zimbabwe is a classic and known example of what can happen to a country when corruption is allowed to flourish.

Without this, I am convinced that the looting we have witnessed with food parcels will take place, but on a grand scale in ways that will put

the arms deal to shame.

President Ramaphosa must be responsible enough to recognise that his party has an atrocious record of corruption. The President must protect public money at a time where any further looting will harm South Africa more than ever before, and take the necessary steps.

Issued by Herman Mashaba, Founder, The People’s Dialogue, 21 April 2020