CORRUPTION - "Sunday World" on December 19 reported that five officials were suspended by Johannesburg's Western Metro Council, following a report in "Sunday World" earlier that people were bribing their way to the top of the RDP housing waiting list. One of the suspended officials Maki Kuaho, the council's urban development department project manager, admitted to the "Sunday World" that she and colleagues took bribes to fast track housing applications. According to the paper, the network of officials worked closely with members of the Roodepoort based Takalane Homeless Organisation in Roodepoort. "Sunday World" said during the month long investigation it was able to obtain a guarantee of a house by February in return for a bribe of R3 710. The payments were made to Takalani chairperson Patric Hlela and vice-chairperson Daniel Molefe. This would have seen Olga Setshedi who worked with the "Sunday World" on the investigation, get ahead of people who had been on the waiting list for RDP houses since 1996.The Western Metro council had launched a high level probe into the matter. Howard Nel, heading the investigation said that the suspensions were to enable the council to ensure that evidence was not interfered with. "If these allegations are true, possible criminal prosecutions and dismissal will be acted upon accordingly", he said. Gauteng housing MEC Paul Mashatile said that part of the investigation was being conducted by the public protector.

WHISTLE BLOWING - "Sowetan" on December 3 reported that the Heath Anti-Corruption Unit, the Gender Commission and the Human Rights Commission were not the appropriate bodies to investigate cases received from whistle-blowers in terms of the proposed Open Democracy Bill. Johnny de Lange, chairperson of the Justice and Constitutional Development Portfolio Committee expressed this view in Parliament on December 2 during discussions on the list of bodies that should be named in the legislation along with the Public Protectors Office. The office is allowed under the Public Protector Act to receive and investigate cases off the street. De Lange said, if cases were received by either the Heath Unit, the Gender Commission or the HRC, then this information would have to be passed on to the State to determine the terms of reference and approval for any investigation. De Lange said that the Heath Unit was formed in terms of the Act on Tribunals. The Unit was not named under this Act, but fell under the category of special Tribunals. "The Act does not allow them to be a referral Unit, although Judge Heath thinks differently. It's clear that it is not a permanent Unit," De Lange said. He added that the Gender Commission and HRC were even problematic because both bodies did not have the power to investigate cases or litigate. In practice, the Heath Unit does receive cases from the public, but is legally obliged to seek State approval. The proposed legislation aims to provide protection against victimisation for whistle blowers in the public and private sectors. It also gives effect to the Constitutional right of access to information held by the government and private bodies. The Bill is expected to be ready for approval by February 4 2000.

PRIVACY - "The Citizen" on December 13 reported that no confirmation was available from the Ministry of Information about claims in a Sunday paper "Rapport" that spies wanted cellphone companies MTN and Vodacom to pay for them to tap cellphones. "Rapport" said that MTN and Vodacom had objected to paying between R80 million and R100 million each for equipment to be used for the tapping of cellphones should changes to legislation proposed by the SA Law Commission be passed into law. It said sensitive discussions between the SALC, the National Intelligence Agency, police and representatives of the cellular phone companies were taking place regarding this question. According to "The Citizen" one of the proposals is that the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications withdraw the licence of any provider if twice found guilty of not adhering to an instruction to tap a call. Pierre van Wyk from SALC told "Rapport" that the state was trying to pressurise the service providers to pay for the equipment and pay for its maintenance. He said, however, that service providers who already paid a licence fee in the form of a five percent tax on net profit before normal tax felt that they were already paying a substantial amount to the state without having to pay this additional fee. They believed government should pay. The second problem service providers had was that they were expected to provide all information of people whose phones were to be tapped. "This was made almost impossible with some two million users who had opted for prepaid style packages", van Wyk said.

PUBLIC BROADCASTING -The SA Broadcasting Corporation announced on December 8 that it will take disciplinary action against seven of its employees for work related offences ranging from breaches of procedure to poor corporate governance. This follows the release of a KPMG forensic report on the corporation. The decision to take disciplinary action was taken at an SABC board meeting. An independent arbitrator will be appointed to determine the innocence or guilt of the staffers. SABC board chairperson Paulos Zulu said that the broadcaster would release the names of the seven, but said the individuals came from across the ranks. Zulu said the disciplinary action would not result in promotions or demotions at senior management level. Meanwhile, "Mail & Guardian" reported that four executives named in the report are chief executive Molefe Mokgatle, group communications chief Thaninga Shope, head of marketing Prince Phaweni and legal adviser Emmanuel Mohomane. The KPMG report called for the suspension of those named in the report while investigations were in progress.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS - The agency set up to ensure all South Africans have access to telephones is unable to deliver this mandate on its own, reported "Mail & Guardian" on December 9. The Universal Service Agency's ambitious plan to roll out hundreds of rural telecentres to connect remote areas to telephones and the Internet has virtually run aground in the face of politically turf battles, internal strife, corruption allegations and technical hitches. "M&G" said that the agency has barely managed to deliver 10% of the telecentres promised by targets it set for itself two years ago. At least 10%of these are not functioning because they have no telephone link up, while a further third of those set up were mere shadows of the original models. USA acting head Fikile Khumalo confirmed that only 28 centres have been set up so far. Ten of these were mini centres that offered only a few of the services originally envisioned and 12 of the 18 full telecentres were set up largely by the Canadian International Development Research Council. Khumalo said the USA's backlog was partly due to lack of co-operation from Telkom, and partly to a turf war with the Department of Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting, which has opposed operation independence for the agency. The Telecentre Project was the USA's main vehicle through which to deliver on its short term goal of ensuring that all South Africans have access to a telephone within a reasonable distance. Khumalo indicated that efforts to get Telkom to connect telephone lines to the centres had fallen on deaf ears. "They have not been very co-operative and SA Telecommunications Regulatory Authority doesn't seem to be in a position to get Telkom to do things". He said the USA approached Minister Ivy Matsepe Casaburri to intervene, but she referred them to SATRA. Meanwhile, Wits University researcher, Peter Benjamin estimated that universal access goal would require a further 15 000 phone points around the country, but he questioned whether telecentres were the best way to do that.

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