12 Corruption is a horrible topic to write about, mainly because it pollutes our news publications on a daily basis. One may be tempted to think that this is an occurrence of our more recent pollical history, however there is plenty of written record of how South African history has been plagued by this for centuries. This is also not just an occurrence well known to our country; both well advanced and developing countries face this issue daily. Not many people know this, but Parliament passed legislation in 2004 to define corruption and set out the consequences for committing corruption. This Act is known as the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act no 12 of 2004, (PRECCA for short). Without getting into the legal technical definition, corruption is simply this: giving something, doing something or just promising something to someone in exchange for some advantage for oneself or someone else close to you. This also extends to the one receiving any of this. The Afrikaans idiom: “die deler is so goed soos die steler” comes to mind (the receiver is as good as the thief). One may think that this only involves people in high-power positions, but don’t underestimate those in your employment who may not be in the limelight. If there is an opportunity to abuse your position, power, access to information or resources, or you can influence someone or a process; you can be corrupted. Corruption knows no limits and can take many forms. The most common we know of include bribery, nepotism, cronyism, corporate espionage, hiding scandals, doing something to avoid hardship, favours for jobs, or just sharing in a benefit in exchange for business. PRECCA places a specific obligation on business entities to report corruption to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation if the transaction exceeds R100 000. Failure to do this constitutes an offence. The most recent development is even more onerous. As of April this year the legislature included section 34A which places an obligation on all private and state-owned companies to implement measures to prevent corruption. Failure to do this is an offence. So essentially you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The Act doesn’t spell out exactly what sort of measures one must take, but as with most compliance legislation, it is best to follow a riskbased approach. This would include: Combating Corruption: Everyone’s business – Jean Simpson – Corporate Services Manager –
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