Apartheid corruption 'hidden'

2006-05-29 17:15

Johannesburg - The apartheid government was not free of corruption, but it was hidden from the public eye, says a report into grand corruption under the Nationalist Party government.

"In closed societies, which are highly militarised under dictatorial rule, the truth is hidden from public view by design," report author Hennie van Vuuren of the Institute for Security Studies said in the introduction.

The report was released on Monday in Johannesburg and the 103 page document gives a chilling insight into corruption and corrupt officials under the former regime.

Van Vuuren said that the issue of grand corruption under apartheid had not been publicly debated much.

"Since the advent of democratic rule, scant attention has been paid to the possibility that leading apartheid-era functionaries (in government and business) may have used the cover of authoritarian rule to illegally acquire vast sums of wealth in defiance even of the legal 'norms' of that time," Van Vuuren wrote.

'Brutal, but honest'

He said public perception that the new democratic South Africa was more corrupt than the old system dominated for a couple of years after 1994.

This was also reinforced by the opinions of former leaders, such as former president FW de Klerk.

This, Van Vuuren said, created a situation where the old government was remembered as "brutal" in the way that it governed, but "honest" in the way it managed its finances.

"In such a scenario the politics of apartheid is trivialised as misguided idealism and the role of the business community in such a system was primarily about legitimate shareholder profit."

This, however, was not the case, according to the report.

The apartheid government was a corrupt system of governance.

"A near monopoly on money, power and influence were in the hands of a minority and they used this to either violently suppress the majority or, at best, transfer resources in order to stave off the inevitable revolution."

The report focused on instances of corruption that took place between 1976 and 1994.

Sensitive issue

It relied on interviews with 20 people, including researchers, journalists, liberation struggle activists, politicians from the previous government, business people and security personnel.

Not all of them, Van Vuuren stated, were willing to be identified.

"It is worth noting that a number of interviewees requested that comments not be attributed to them... This reflects the fact that the nature of this research is still considered sensitive by many."

Information was also collected from various private and public archival collections.

"It is worth noting that little exists in the way of official records of corruption under apartheid.

"Many of the official records that were not destroyed prior to 1994 are either accommodated by disparate departments, the national archive or are held in private collections by officials..."

- SAPA