Cape Town - About three-quarters of the cabinet's 35 members have
financial interests outside their main occupation and so do 59% of the
country's 400 members of parliament.
The findings were released on Friday by the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) through its Who owns What Database.
ISS
senior researcher Collette Schulz-Herzenberg said there was a trend
that many publicly elected officials and senior management in the public
sector appear to have financial interests, including directorships of
companies, that are not part of their main function or office.
This
information was gathered from disclosure forms that public
representatives had to complete and the ISS had received from the
relevant authorities.
Cabinet members who are also members of
parliament were included in the National Assembly total and so may be
double-counted, but Schulz-Herzenberg said that the levels of disclosure
were higher for members of the executive than for ordinary MPs.
She
pointed out that the ISS had so far received 9 000 disclosure records
that were filled in by various public officials from 2004 until 2010
including that of President
Jacob Zuma, and so far the information
received varied greatly in quality and levels of disclosure.
Using
Zuma's disclosure as an example, the record indicated that he had
received gifts form various heads of state, including Zimbabwe's Robert
Mugabe and US President Barak Obama.
"However, what it worrying
is that President Zuma's own forms do not say what companies he is a
director of or not as those fields are completely blank,"
Schulz-Herzenberg.
The aim of the ISS Who Owns What Database is
to make public officials more transparent in their private business
dealings, and so make them more publically accountable.
Schulz-Herzenberg
said there was an ongoing misconception about what constitutes a
conflict of interest and that it was not purely about financial
disclosure.
"It could include the use of one's political office,
or being located close to those in power, or nepotism, or favouritism,
or the use of one's own property to gain advantage," she said.
Schulz-Herzenberg
said there were a number of grey areas where transgressions of public
interest can and do occur and what was acceptable conduct.
"This
tool would give the public a practical means to access thousands of
records that largely existed only on paper to work out conflicts of
interest in public life," she said.
Schulz-Herzenberg said the
idea of the database was not something new as it was mooted by the late
Kader Asmal, whom she described as the architect of ethics regulation
who prompted those in power to be mindful of the importance of ethical
conduct in public life.
Deputy Public Protector Mamiki Shai
said: "Disclosure was not only about economics but about civil society
functioning. Disclosure improves the public's understanding of their
role in governance and in protecting their investment in government and
public funds."
Shai said the public was not participating in holding public officials accountable in the way they should be.
"Ask
anyone about tax money and they have difficulty conceptualising
government money as that of the labour of those working. Every taxpayer
should understand that government money is their money and should be
accounted for," Shai said.