SA’s corruption levels nothing special – index says we’re just average

South Africa surprisingly slipped only one point on the latest corruption perceptions index (CPI) released by Transparency International, despite the spate of alleged corruption exposed by the Zondo Report into state capture and other entities last year.

The Corruption Perceptions Index 2022 report shows that South Africa had a CPI score of 43 in 2022, compared with 44 in 2021.

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The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople.

It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

South Africa’s score of 43 is the average score for the 180 countries and territories featured in the latest version of the index.

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However, South Africa’s score is 11 index points better than that of the sub-Saharan region, which remained the lowest performer on the index with an average score of 32.

The Seychelles, with a score of 70, was the top-performing country in sub-Saharan Africa. Somalia, with a CPI of 12, was the worst-performing country in the region and of all the countries included in the index.

Western Europe and the European Union was once again the top-scoring region in the CPI, with an average score of 66.

Progress not what it used to be

Transparency International says progress has stagnated in most countries for more than a decade, as undue influence and fragmented anti-corruption measures have taken their toll.

The report highlights that despite concerted efforts and many hard-won gains, the latest index shows that the scale of corruption is enormous.

It says the global average remains unchanged at 43 out of 100 for the 11th consecutive year and more than two thirds or 68% of countries scored below 50.

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Top and bottom

The report says countries with strong institutions and well-functioning democracies often find themselves at the top of the Index.

Denmark headed the ranking in the 2022 CPI, with a score of 90, followed closely by Finland and New Zealand with 87.

Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg completed the top 10.

On the flip side, it says countries experiencing conflict or where basic personal and political freedoms are highly restricted, tend to earn the lowest marks.

Somalia, Syria and South Sudan are at the bottom of the 2022 index, with Venezuela, Yemen, Libya, North Korea, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea and Burundi making up the rest of the bottom 10.

Corruption ‘a fundamental threat’

The report says corruption is a fundamental threat to peace and security.

It says it has been repeatedly shown that corruption is not only a consequence but also a cause of conflict, fuelling it by generating new grievances in society, or driving existing ones by undermining defence and security institutions and by eroding state legitimacy.

“It can also enable a country’s elites to exert illegitimate influence, sow instability and undermine government institutions abroad as a way of securing favourable outcomes.”

It says the use of corruption “as a foreign policy weapon has also become a way to undermine democracy abroad”.

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‘Discontent’

Diverting public resources away from the common good to benefit special interest groups can cause popular discontent, it adds. The resulting grievances are particularly likely to lead to conflict, when they coincide with disparities in the distribution of political and economic power along ethnic or other group lines.

The report says corruption, exclusion and outright discrimination increase the risk of outbreaks of violence and make them harder to control once they erupt.

It says 130 countries have seen significant social protests since 2017.

In 42% of these countries at least one protest was driven by the people’s discontent with the levels of corruption in government.

South Africa was hit by a wave of civil unrest in July 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, marked by rioting and looting and allegedly sparked by the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court.

Low-scoring countries face greater terrorism risk

Transparency International says unsurprisingly 80% of the corruption-related protests and 82% of the documented violent responses against protesters occurred in countries with CPI scores below 50.

“Corruption weakens the state’s capacity to protect its citizens,” it says.

“The misuse or theft of public funds can deprive institutions responsible for ensuring security of the resources they need.”

Its analysis “shows that weak law enforcement and defence institutions make it harder for a state to secure control of its territory and prevent violent threats, including terrorism”.

An Intellidex report commissioned by Business Leadership SA last year, concluded that South Africa has an 85% probability of being greylisted – a global attempt to prevent illicit funds from being channelled towards terrorism.

This followed the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body overseeing compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures, finding South Africa was partially compliant or noncompliant with 20 of FATF’s 40 recommendations.

The task force’s evaluation of South Africa found significant flaws, mostly related to state capture and the country’s inability to bring criminals to justice because of laundering.

FATF will decide whether or not to greylist South Africa at its February 2023 conference. If it does, it will necessitate increased due diligence on South African individuals and businesses, plus more frequent and intrusive evaluations for anti-money laundering and terrorism funding risks.

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The 2022 CPI report says dealing with the threats that corruption poses to peace and security must be a core business of political leaders.

It recommends that in prioritising transparency, oversight and the full, meaningful engagement of civil society, governments should:

Reinforce checks and balances, and promote the separation of powers, apart from strengthening institutional controls to manage risk of corruption in defence and security;

Share information and uphold the right to access it, with rigorous and clear guidelines in place for withholding sensitive information, including in the defence sector;

Limit private influence by regulating lobbying and promoting open access to decision making; and

Combat transnational forms of corruption, with top-scoring countries needing to clamp down on corporate secrecy, foreign bribery and complicit professional enablers, such as bankers and lawyers, while also taking advantage of new ways of working together, to ensure that illicit assets can be effectively traced, investigated, confiscated and returned to the victims.