S. African anti-corruption task team operational: Presidency

The South African Presidency on Tuesday refuted the allegation by the opposition that the government has disbanded the Anti-Corruption Task Team (ACTT).

The allegation "is incorrect and baseless", presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj said.

Hellen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and premier of the Western Cape Province, recently accused the government of disbanding the ACTT in face of mounting corruption.

"It is disappointing that the Premier has decided to spread misleading information and gossip when she could have easily established the facts and imparted accurate information to the public," Maharaj said.

"The ACTT is fully operational and has been strengthened under the leadership of the Anti-Corruption Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) led by the Minister in the Presidency for Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr Jeff Radebe."

In June 2014 the Antic-Corruption IMC confirmed and concretized the role of the ACTT as the central body mandated to give effect to government anti-corruption agenda, as collectively informed by the National Development Plan (NDP), Medium Term Strategic Framework (MSTF), the National Security Strategy (NSS) and the country's international obligations.

The unit has scored visible successes and government looks up to it to work even harder to assist in rooting out corruption, said Maharaj.

He said the South African government has adopted a multi-agency approach on which comprehensive anti-corruption architecture, which is composed of a range of institutions to address corruption from different angles. This sets the direction towards ensuring that a resilient anti-corruption system is in place.

South Africa faces intolerably high levels of corruption within the public and private sectors.

In 2014, the government adopted the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2014-2019 to combat corruption which "undermines the rule of law and impedes government's efforts to achieve its socioeconomic development and service delivery objectives".

Since then, a number of strategies to address corruption were subsequently developed, initiatives were launched and mechanisms established to expose corrupt practices in South Africa, notably the establishment of the Multi-Agency Working Group (MAWG) to deal with procurement issues relating to corruption and irregularities within government's procurement system. Endi