Corruption in South Africa's local governments increasingly resembles organised crime, undermining essential services and democratic governance. The Institute for Security Studies has mapped patterns of graft in three municipalities, highlighting networks of nepotism, fraud, and intimidation. This organised corruption exploits weak compliance and consequence management, eroding public trust.
South Africa's municipalities, responsible for economic growth, infrastructure, and essential services, face a growing menace from highly organised corruption. According to a report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), this graft mirrors traditional organised crime in its structure but involves predicate offences like corruption and fraud, rather than drug or arms trafficking. The Auditor-General has described the state of municipalities as 'dire,' with interactions between municipal actors and private sector providers, governed by the Municipal Finance Management Act, often exploited due to poor internal compliance and lack of consequence management.
The ISS analysis, drawing from Auditor-General reports, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), parliamentary committees, the 2024 Governance Performance Index, news articles, and investigations, examined corruption at Madibeng Local Municipality, OR Tambo District Municipality, and the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Common patterns include gaining influence through irregular appointments, nepotism, and patronage; manipulating legitimate systems for personal gain; and protecting illicit activities via administrative or violent means.
In Madibeng, networks formed through family, friendship, and political connections facilitate financial crimes such as bank account tampering, tender fraud, illegal investments, and duplicate payments, requiring coordinated efforts to perpetrate, sustain, and conceal. At OR Tambo, corruption leverages the province's water crisis, with officials, utility employees, and contractors involved in a 'prepaid' scheme for undelivered dam projects. Irregular payments went to the provincial water board and independent contractors, some under SIU investigation. Intimidation was evident when Gift of the Givers aid workers distributing free water after June floods were threatened by a 'water mafia' allegedly linked to municipal contracts.
The City of Johannesburg shows State Capture-like organisation, with the Auditor-General noting poor consequence management, procurement non-compliance, and high irregular expenditure. The SIU identified systemic weaknesses, including collusion between supply chain officials, bid committees, and providers; overpricing; and flawed processes.
This 'organised corruption'—a symbiosis of organised crime methods and high-level graft—normalises profitable schemes, reducing incentives for good governance. It leads to health, sanitation, environmental, and economic fallout, fuelling protests and democratic disengagement. Nuanced analysis of actors, relationships, and processes is urged to build prosecutable cases and interventions, as detailed in the ISS policy brief 'Corruption in SA municipalities: a form of organised crime?'