Audit officials, urges Busa

Pretoria - Lifestyle audits needed to be conducted in the government to win the fight against corruption in South Africa, Business Unity SA president Futhi Mtoba said on Thursday.

"Your lifestyle depicts what you earn. The lifestyle audit on individuals will help all of us to know how you created your wealth and that therefore (that) you deserve the life that you have," Mtoba told an International Anti-Corruption Day summit in Pretoria.

Earlier Public Service Commission chairperson Ralph Ngijima indicated it intended to introduce lifestyle audits in the government.

It this comes to pass, Mtoba said people would have to embrace it and it would become one of the conditions of service.

"It happens in many sectors in business - it's not a new phenomenon."

She said civil society also had a role to play in combating corruption.

Public Service Minister Richard Baloyi, who spoke at the summit earlier in the day, said public servants could no longer merely recite their code of conduct without internalising and making it their way of life.

Public servants need to remember the code makes no room for corruption.

Three key things that need to be addressed to ensure the government wins the war against corruption include the way cases are being investigated, discipline and strategic information management, he said.

Baloyi criticised the practice of suspending officials suspected of wrongdoing on full pay, saying this needed to be stopped.

"We'll make sure that it is taken care of and becomes a thing of the past."

Baloyi said if need be they would go to parliament to ensure legislation to this effect was created.