Assessing the Impact of Corruption on Human Rights and Civil Liberties during COVID-19 in South Africa

A strange phenomenon of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak hit the world in 2019. Although countries such as South Africa have procurement policies and procedures on parliamentary actions, the COVID-19 pandemic forced those protocols to be not followed. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of corruption on human rights and civil liberties during Covid-19 in South Africa. Ten participants representing different age groups from Polokwane in Limpopo province were purposively sampled for semi-structured interviews as victims of the lockdown who could not even visit their homes. One of the major findings is that not following government protocols led to serious violations of policies and human rights at large. The discussion in this study shows that the leading political party issued regulations that by far limit civil liberties without any proper justification or legitimacy. For a while, this kind of regulation and issuing of tenders through illegitimate processes has been politically discussed as one of the factors that impoverish the state and increase corruption. In this study, researchers recommend that the South African government must have a plan for managing unforeseen circumstances that can help in times of despair. This study contributes to scholarship as it exposes an academic view of how corruption becomes the result of infringing on human rights and civil liberties. Using an analytic theoretic framework, the negative impact of corruption on human rights and civil liberties in South Africa from 2019 to 2022 will be discussed to expose the seriousness of hasty decision-making by the government. Keywords: Corruption, Human Rights, Civil Liberties, COVID-19 Pandemic, Government Procedures