Ministry of Local Governmentand Rural Development(MLGRD)remains the leading corrupt ministryaccording to the informationavailable at the Directorate onCorruption and Economic Crime(DCEC). Public Relations Offi -cer of the DCEC, Lentswe Motshoganetsisaid that MLGRDis still the most corrupt ministrywith an 18 per cent corruptionrate in 2012, from 21 per cent theprevious year.The Ministry of Transport andCommunication comes secondwith 13 per cent in 2012 from 15in 2011, followed by Labour andHome Affairs with 11 per cent in2012 from 14 in 2011.
However, Motshoganetsi notedthat, “to date, the level of anti-corruptioninitiatives in the ministriesand departments has improved.”He said that it was an achievementfor the inclusion of his departmentin the ministerial performance reviewteam. The DCEC is now partof the team that assesses ministrieson their performance by assessingthe level to which ministries areputting anti-corruption measures inplace and were implementing recommendationsthat came out of theDCEC assignment.“The Directorate continues toput in place anti-corruption units ministries, and these are an extensionof the Directorate as they areequipped with offi cers who haveinvestigative backgrounds and areable to conduct preliminary inquirieson the suspected wrong doingsand refer matters to the relevant authorities,”Motshoganetsi said.
MLGRD minister Peter Sielesaid in an interview with The Gazettethat they have put in placestrategies to curb corruption. Theyhave established anti-corruptioncommittees at ministerial andcouncil level, he added.“We have held meetings withDirector General of DCEC to fi ndways that we can make these committeesmore effective. On a regularbasis I visit local authorities,mayors, council secretaries andchiefs to discuss issues of corruption,and I encourage them to makesure these committees do work,”Siele said.The Minister went on to say thatit was diffi cult to specifi cally stateareas where this corruption is centredin the ministry. “When you aredealing with a staff complement ofover 25, 000 like it is the case inour ministry, there are bound to beelements of not doing things well.
But we are fi ghting it and my hopeis that there would be a decrease inthe next annual report,” he said.Meanwhile, even though corruptionseems to be decreasing inthe majority of the ministries inthe past three years, according tothe DCEC, some ministries whichdid not experience corruption inthe same period, found themselvesregistering cases of corruption in2012.The said ministries are those ofMinerals, Energy and Water Resources,and Finance and DevelopmentPlanning. Both ministriesregistered three per cent corruptionrates in 2012.Ministry of Environment, Wildlifeand Tourism, and that of Youth,Sport and Culture were both at twoper cent, and the Trade and Industryministry was the least corrupt atone per cent.