17 Mar 2024

 The Ethics and Integrity Directorate is experiencing serious shortage of staff, which makes it difficult for it to fully execute its mandate and achieve deliverables.

Assistant Minister for State President Ms Boitumelo Gofhamodimo revealed this in Parliament on March 13 when presenting the 2024/25 financial year budget estimates for the Directorate, amounting to P22.3m . The proposal included P22m as recurrent estimates and P309 993 as development estimates.

Ms Gofhamodimo explained that the Ethics and Integrity Directorate was responsible for compiling the register of declarations showing a list of persons who declared, those who were issued with notices for failure to declare and failed to comply, and those that were subjected to penalties. 

She further said the directorate was responsible for providing guidelines on conflict of interest, and code of ethics.

Ms Gofhamodimo said the directorate, which started operating in January 2020 after being established by the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Act of 2019,  received declarations since February 2020.

“The mandate of the Directorate is to promote and reinforce integrity and accountability in public office by ensuring compliance with the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Act. It does this by monitoring the interests, income, assets and liabilities of certain categories of persons for the purpose of preventing and detecting corruption, money laundering and acquisition of property from proceeds of any other offence,” she said.

Ms Gofhamodimo added that the directorate was also mandated to collaborate with other entities in the development and promotion of standards and best practice to promote ethical conduct. 

She said efforts were underway to build a world class asset declaration system for monitoring the interests, income, assets and liabilities.

Ms Gofhamodimo said the directorate was in the process of digitizing its Asset Declaration System.

“The first stage of the digitization project is aimed at improving the efficiency of the Directorate by automating the Asset Declaration Form and various processes of the Directorate. Digitization of the Form will make it easier for declarants to complete and send declarations electronically. The digital Asset Declaration Form is now ready for piloting,” she said.

The assistant minister pointed that the second stage of developing the Asset Declaration System involved development of the back-end, which would assist with the processing of declarations by analysing and verifying information submitted in order to detect corruption, money laundering or acquisition of property from the proceeds of any other offence.

Ms Gofhamodimo said the final stage of the project would be to provide public access to the list of persons who submitted their declarations and a list of persons who failed to submit their declarations after the Director General issued them with a notice to declare, and the penalties imposed on them for failing to declare.

Ms Gofhamodimo said P10.3m or 47 per cent of the recurrent budget was for salaries and allowances of staff. 

She said P896 900 would cater for internal trips by staff, while P1.198m was budgeted to cater for external travel by staff.

She added that P309 993 proposed under the development budget was requested for the procurement of information and communication technology equipment. ENDS