I have had my share of dealing with large government
tenders. It is a hell of a process and
it would, in my experience, require an enormous amount of collusion to get
round or to manipulate in favour of one or other particular company. That it can happen, and does happen, is
undeniable. But what is clear from the
recent price fixing revelations of the major construction firms involved in the
bids for the 2010 soccer infrastructure tenders, is that they recognised this –
and sought a more reliable and more effective way of beating the system. Price-fixing only requires the collusion of
others who stand to benefit in the industry – not rogue government officials. That is why it is, generally, such a reliable
mechanism for corruption.
I once, in casual discussion with a relative of mine who was
high up in the business stratosphere, asked him why it was, in his opinion, that
I had never been asked by anyone to manipulate a tender. In all the years I
have worked in government, I have never been approached by anyone in business,
to do anything. I found this strange, because frankly, in some of the large
tenders I have handled, I had been expecting it. But nothing! Not a knock on a door. Not the offer of a holiday in France. No
cars, no shopping vouchers, no houses, no expensive suits, no Rolex watches.
Every year, I have filled in my disclosure of interest forms, disclosing the paltry
fact that I own one serious debt - my house, and nothing else. No shares, no
gratuities, no gifts over R300. I am director of no companies. It is a fairly depressing disclosure, to be
sure.
My relative looked at me amused – (actually it was
worse. He looked at me as though he had
suddenly come to understand just how stupid I really am). “Michael”, he said wearily, “do you not know
that in every serious business, there is a whole unit which is dedicated to
profiling people like you. They will
have done a detailed scan on you and come up with the fact that you would
probably have too many difficulties with an offer. So they look for other more likely candidates”.
I was scandalised. His quizzical look
turned to unabashed pity (verging on disdain) at my naivety.
So, “corruption” is very much a word bandied about today,
as if the ANC has invented it. But if we
are in the least bit honest, we will admit that corruption is much bigger, much
deeper, much wider, much more endemic to our society than being simply an ANC
or government problem. To characterize it as such is really not to understand
the nature of the problem. It is a problem which reaches back far into the
country's nationalist part, where corruption was pervasive, state enabled and
unchallenged. Those same nationalist politicians, in close alliance with big
business and multinational companies, simply carried over their corrupt
practices, virtually unchanged, into the democratic era - but now enabled, where it has succeeded, by
black and government (by which I mean the whole span of government, from ANC to
DA) support, either explicit or implicit.
I have certainly had personal experience of less than
savoury demands made by non- ANC politicians, who happened to be my political
heads at the time. On the scale of things, the demands made on me were minuscule
and did not succeed, because of the tight prescripts of the Public Service Management Act. On the other hand (and let me say this
clearly) in all my years of government, I have never had any similar demands
made on me by ANC politicians, nor have I witnessed anything personally,
amongst the senior officials I have worked with which could be termed corrupt
behavior. I am merely making the point that the ANC does not own the sole rights to corruption, nor is it the only party which can be corrupt. Nor would I want to ignore blatent cases of corruption where the ANC is involved.
I agree completely with the assertion that corruption is
key to the attainment of justice in our society, but I would urge that we don't
get sucked into the easy and comfortable analysis that this is merely an ANC
problem. Get rid of the ANC, I sometimes hear, and corruption will miraculously
vanish, day will dawn, birds will sing overhead, rainbows will form in the
sky. I don’t think so. The ANC has no monopoly on corruption in our
society.
Clearly, yes, it is a government problem, but it
is also very obviously a private sector problem as well. And even more than
that, it is a problem which involves every citizen. It involves every one of us
when we pay a bribe, because we are in a hurry. It involves us when we grease a
deal. It involves us when we make a call to a friend or relative in a
government department, who can fast-track a decision, or tweak an employment
process. It is about feeding the demand. These are the ways in which corruption is fed and sustained.
Corruption
is a state of the collective mind. It
cannot happen in insolation. It requires
two to tango. It cannot happen only somewhere else – with others – over there
somewhere. If you think about it, hard
enough, you will likely start to see how uncomfortably close a thing it is, to all of us. And if we do that, and if we are honest, perhaps that might be the beginning of the end.
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