scholarly journals The nexus between corruption and opportunistic crimes during Covid-19 in South Africa

2022 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 980-994
Author(s):  
Modipa Mmakwena ◽  
Motseki Moses

Covid 19 in South Africa created opportunity for criminals to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. Public and private sector officials benefited due to irregular tenders and overpricing of personal protective equipments in South Africa as reported on media platforms. This article explores opportunistic crimes associated with Covid 19 and their impact on the fight against the pandemic. This qualitative article adopted a non-empirical research design: Systematic review, indirect observation schedules to identify and describe available research literature ‘using systematic and explicit accountable methods and pre-specified formalised tools for searching and integrating literature. The data was collected from January-July 2021. The collected data was analysed through inductive textual content analysis. Findings revealed that public officials benefited from irregular PPE tenders as well as friends and families of politicians. The findings further indicate that billions of Rands were looted from funds which were meant to fight Covid 19 in South Africa. Lastly the findings show that law enforcement agencies are not effective in dealing with cases of Covid 19 crimes. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were developed: Law enforcement agencies should be equipped with resources to deal with Covid 19 crimes and ensure successful prosecution of those crimes, Competition Commission should investigate the companies which benefited from irregular tenders and overpricing of PPE’s so that they could be held accountable. Public participation should be strengthened to combat crime.

Author(s):  
Mbuso Mabuza ◽  
Constance Shumba

South Africa is faced with a huge challenge of addressing the high burden of tuberculosis-human immune virus (TBHIV) co-infection, and this challenge is more pronounced in the province of KwaZulu-Natal which has one of the highest burdens of TB-HIV co-infection in the world. The study explored the experiences of doctors and nurses with regard to the management of tuberculosis and HIV coinfection in a TB-HIV high burden community in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The particular focus was to provide insight and to inform policy and programme development for effective management of TB-HIV co-infection in the TB-HIV high burden community of northern KwaZulu- Natal. An interpretivist exploratory qualitative approach was employed through individual semi-structured interviews of 16 participants comprising eight doctors and eight nurses, with a total interview time of 8.95 hours. Purposive sampling was used to select the doctors and nurses from the public and private sector of the TB-HIV high burden community of northern KwaZulu- Natal. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Five key themes emerged from this study and these themes were discussed together with the sub-themes based on the various participant responses. The five key themes were practical experience about the management of TB-HIV co-infection; access to information and training on the management of TB-HIV co-infection; challenges and concerns about the management of TB-HIV co-infection; perception about local beliefs; and knowledge of policies and guidelines. Overall, this study highlights barriers that hamper the effective management of TB-HIV co-infection in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Recommendations of this study point towards an urgent need to scale up the management of TB-HIV co-infection through effective policies, improved capacity and infrastructure, stronger partnerships of all stakeholders, and further research.


Author(s):  
Andreas Wörgötter ◽  
Sihle Nomdebevana

AbstractThis paper investigates the public-private remuneration patterns in South Africa with time-series methods for the first time since the introduction of an inflation-targeting framework in 2000. Co-integration tests and analysis confirm that there is a stable, long-run relationship between nominal and real remuneration in the public and private sector. The adjustment to the deviations from this long-run relationship is strong and significant for public-sector remuneration, while private-sector wages neither respond to deviations from the long-run relationship nor lagged changes in public-sector remuneration. The causal direction from private- to public-sector remuneration does not change if real earnings are calculated with the gross domestic product deflator. This is confirmed by simple Granger-causality tests.


Significance The fifth consecutive year of revenue shortfalls follows years of mismanagement and institutional turmoil at SARS under former Commissioner Tom Moyane, an ally of former President Jacob Zuma (2009-18). On March 27, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed the respected Edward Kieswetter as the new SARS commissioner to help turn around the once-lauded agency. Impacts Kieswetter’s appointment should help improve relations between SARS and the National Treasury, and SARS and law enforcement agencies. Rebuilding SARS's depleted skills pool will be a significant challenge for Kieswetter. Internal divisions within SARS could persist over the short term, driven by Moyane loyalists.


2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Robert Mash ◽  
Klaus Von Pressentin

This paper reports on a workshop held at the 19th National Family Practitioners Conference in August 2016. The aim of the workshop was to describe possible future scenarios for the discipline of family medicine in South Africa and identify possible options for action. The workshop led a group of 40 family physicians from academic, public and private sector settings through a scenario planning process developed by Clem Sunter and Chantell Ilbury. After an overview of the current situation the participants reached a consensus on the rules of the game, key uncertainties, future scenarios and options for action. The main message was that the South African Academy of Family Physicians as a professional body needs to take a stronger role in advocating for the contribution of family medicine to government, health managers and the public. (Full text of the research articles are available online at www.medpharm.tandfonline.com/ojfp) S Afr Fam Pract 2017; DOI: 10.1080/20786190.2016.1272231


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. p119
Author(s):  
Ansia Storm

Purpose—The purpose of this paper was to compare three first-world countries’ law enforcement agencies to those of South Africa. The aim was to identify areas where South Africa’s agencies can improve to take the fighting of corruption to a higher level, and in doing so, improve their ranking on Transparency International’s scale, and their Corruption Perception Index.Design/methodology/approach—The author compared South Africa’s law enforcement agencies to those of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia to identify possible areas where South Africa’s agencies can improve.Findings—The results indicate preliminary support for areas in South Africa’s law enforcement agencies that need restructuring and improvement.Practical implications—Improved law enforcement agencies will assist in the fight against corruption, improving South Africa’s corruption perception index (among others), which might encourage foreign investment.Originality/value—The results of this study point to opportunities to strengthen law enforcement agencies in South Africa, which will result in improved crime-fighting abilities, higher prosecution rates, and improved crime statistics.Research limitations—Law enforcement agencies (which deals with corruption in general) from the USA, the U.K., and Australia will be explored and compared with those of South Africa.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1179
Author(s):  
Stefany Ismantara ◽  
Raden Ajeng Diah Puspa Sari ◽  
Cecilia Elvira ◽  
Rahaditya Rahaditya

Corruption is the abuse of power for private gain that dangers various aspects in a country. Recently, corruption case that eroded the moral legitimacy of law enforcement officers had been revealed. The purpose of this article is to evaluate law enforcement against corruption by public officials in Indonesia as well as measures to overcome its problems effectively. The methodology used in this research is normative legal research which focused on secondary data approach. The injustice that includes weak sentencing regarding the bribery case of Pinangki Sirna Malasari had caught the public's attention for the lack of impactful sentencing. This injustice makes more potential corruptors who are ignorant of the law. Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies are considered to have high tolerance for corruption cases, and this principle of conditional justice has become common knowledge for the people. Corruption has the potential to destroy the nation’s morale, hinder economic development, and trigger anarchism. The government and society must synergize in instilling an anti-corruption mindset towards themselves and the younger generation. Surveillance towards government institutions must be strengthened with public participation. Intervention of president as the highest authority is needed when there’s injustice under his realm of authority. Formulation of a supporting legislation and establishment of anti-corruption institutions in every government or state agencies are needed. In order to create a government that is free of corruption, realization of anti-corruption law in Indonesia had to be done seriously. Korupsi adalah penyalahgunaan kekuasaan untuk kepentingan pribadi yang membahayakan berbagai aspek kehidupan. Belum lama ini, terkuak kasus korupsi yang mengikis legitimasi moral aparat penegak hukum. Karya tulis ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji bagaimana penegakan hukum terhadap tindak pidana korupsi oleh oknum pejabat publik di Indonesia, serta langkah-langkah pemberantasan korupsi secara efektif. Metode penelitian yang digunakan dalam penyusunan artikel ini adalah metode penelitian hukum normatif yang berfokus pengumpulan data sekunder. Ketidakadilan tuntutan hukum akan kasus penyuapan Pinangki Sirna Malasari menyita perhatian publik karena tuntutan pidana yang kurang memadai terlepas dari pelanggaran kode etik yang dilakukan sebagai aparat penegak hukum negara.. Jika ketidakadilan ini terus terjadi, akan muncul banyak koruptor potensial bebal hukum yang menjadi awal bagi kehancuran negara. Apabila implementasi penegakan hukum tidak maksimal, maka nilai dari hukum tersebut akan berkurang. Lembaga penegakan hukum di Indonesia dinilai memiliki toleransi yang tinggi terhadap kasus korupsi, dan prinsip keadilan bersyarat ini sudah menjadi pengetahuan umum bagi rakyat. Korupsi dapat menghancurkan moral bangsa, menghambat pembangunan ekonomi, serta memicu anarkisme. Pemerintah dan masyarakat harus bersinergi dalam menanamkan pola pikir anti korupsi terhadap diri sendiri dan para generasi muda. Transparansi dan pengawasan terhadap lembaga-lembaga pemerintahan harus diperkuat dengan adanya partisipasi masyarakat. Presiden sebagai pemegang kekuasaan tertinggi wajib turun tangan ketika terdapat ketidakadilan yang terjadi di bawah rumpunnya. Dibutuhkan perumusan legislasi yang mendukung dan pembuatan lembaga pemberantas korupsi di setiap badan penyelenggara negara. Demi mengusahakan suatu pemerintahan yang bersih dari korupsi, penegakan hukum atas tindak pidana korupsi di Indonesia harus direalisasikan dengan sungguh-sungguh.


2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Vess ◽  
Brooke Langskaill ◽  
Andrew Day ◽  
Martine Powell ◽  
Joe Graffam

Australia has followed the course taken by other English-speaking countries in recent years of enacting legislation that requires convicted sexual offenders to register personal details with law enforcement agencies. These laws have been enacted to protect the public from the perceived threat posed by sex offenders, but have been written with little apparent reference to the available research literature about the nature and extent of this threat. In addition, there is no empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of legislatively based sex offender registries to either reduce sexual offending or to enable the police to investigate sex crimes and apprehend offenders. This article compares and contrasts the current laws governing sex offender registration enacted by the various states and territories in Australia, and offers a critical analysis of their provisions in light of the research literature on sexual offending.


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