The Use of Financial Disclosure to Promote the Corrupt-free South African Police Service

Description

Page: 475-481

Khathutshelo Matshela¹, Mzikayise Binza², and Ricky Munyaradzi Mukonza³ (Department of Public Management, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa^1,3 and Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic Affairs and Research, Walter Sisulu University, South Africa²)

Corruption is a threat to good governance and hinders the growth and development of an organisation and the delivery of services. It is of international interest to establish organisations within the public and private sector realms for enhancing accountability and designing effective mechanisms and tools to enable these organisations to fight corruption. Corruption negatively affects economic development and increases poverty as public resources that are meant to fight poverty are appropriated by a small group of corrupt people for their benefit. Under these circumstances, South African society will continue to be characterised by economic inequality. There is strong empirical evidence that some public servants, in particular those at senior and executive levels, are continuing to loot public funds to benefit themselves. This has been done mostly by illegally influencing the processes of tenders for public institutions. The objective of this paper is to determine whether SAPS members encounter any difficulties in the process of completing the financial disclosure. This paper is qualitative and primary data has been collected from SAPS officials. Secondary data was collected from books and journal articles, official government documents such as gazettes. The main finding is that some SAPS officials disclose incorrect information about their income and properties. This article concludes that financial disclosure is a powerful tool for ensuring that the SAPS is free of corruption if it is administered properly. It recommends that streamlining and clarifying the financial disclosure procedure will effectively simplify the process of financial disclosure.