Hon Speaker and hon members, in respect of dealing with corruption, we have the laws and institutions in place, and targets have been set. So, our attention is on ensuring the effectiveness of these measures and building public confidence. For example, our endeavour to root out corruption has necessitated that we pay great attention to eliminating weaknesses in our procurement system, which is often the source of most of the corruption we encounter.
In this regard, the National Treasury is busy with the refinement and optimisation of our procurement system. Additionally, the National Treasury recently published for public comment the Municipal Financial Misconduct Regulations, the aim of which is to introduce measures intended to combat corruption in the public and private sectors through advocacy, strengthening the legal and policy prescripts and frameworks and, most importantly, the implementation thereof.
Furthermore, it is well known that apart from the Special Investigating Unit, the government has established other agencies whose mandates, among other things, include combating serious commercial crimes and corruption. These include the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, the Hawks, the Asset Forfeiture Unit, the Multi-Agency Working Group and the Public Service Anti-Corruption Unit. In addition, several departments have established anticorruption hotlines to which suspected incidents of corruption are reported by members of the public.
However, the rooting out of corruption demands far more than just institutions and laws. Corruption happens when people who work inside and outside government manipulate the system for their own benefit. This happens despite the robustness of anticorruption institutions. In short, I am arguing that corruption undermines democracy and therefore all of us, especially we who are entrusted by the public to uphold the Constitution, must work in concert to strengthen institutions and programmes designed to free our society from the scourge of corruption.
We must raise the bar in terms of accountability and monitoring of how public funds are used. We must work together to ensure that each programme of the democratic state yields quality results, thus accelerating transformation, service delivery and the building of a nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous, democratic South Africa. I thank you for your attention.