The South African president has gotten the ball rolling on a new system to conduct lifestyle audits on members of the executive.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said there will be no exceptions to the new system for conducting lifestyle audits.
Ramaphosa appeared before the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Tuesday, 11 September 2018.
The framework for the audits on members of the executive and top government officials would be ready by the end of October.
Ramaphosa first mentioned in his State of the Nation address in February, that he would be introducing rigorous lifestyle audits on his executive committee.
The president said his director-general Cassius Lubisi would be meeting with several agencies in crime prevention and financial intelligence to design and formulate the system.
“Now a technical team has been set up, consisting of the Presidency, the Auditor-General, the SAPS, SARS, State Security Agency, Anti-Corruption Task Team, the Office of the Public Service Commission and the Financial Intelligence Centre”
“We are bringing together agencies of high class. Allow us space and time to finalise this. I can tell you that we are going have this by the end of October,” Ramaphosa said.
He added that: “We didn’t want to go with a process with holes that could be easily circumvented”
The president said the system needed to comply with the Bill of Rights while also having teeth.
Ramaphosa, however, failed to give a date for the much-anticipated system, but said it first had to be developed. He further emphasised that nobody would be excused from the lifestyle audit, himself included.
Thabo Baloyi
t.baloyi@politicalanalysis.co.za
