Assessing the affectiveness of measures aimed at combating corruption in the South African public service

The Democracy and Governance Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council is pleased to present this report which reviews anti-corruption efforts in the public service, as part of the government's 15 year review study. This report will be structured in three chapters, followed by a general conclusion. The first chapter will give an overview of the terms of reference which guided the study. This will be followed by agreeing on a working definition of corruption to be applied in this study. The bulk of chapter one will concentrate on providing a historical picture of how anti-corruption efforts in the public service evolved over the review period, and what specific instruments, in the form of laws, regulations, policies, programmes and institutions were created over this time to respond to the issue. The second chapter will give an empirically-based picture of public opinions and perceptions of corruption in the state sector over the review period, followed by an analysis of data on actual cases of corruption involving public servants. The third chapter will attempt to outline what this study has found to be the key challenges that continue to face the South African government in strengthening its public service anti-corruption efforts. A general conclusion will then follow, which will attempt to tie together the components of this study by considering the impact that measures introduced in the last fifteen years have had on the experiences of corruption in the public service.