Cape Town - Minister of Public Works Geoff Doidge today announced the launch of a systematic process to clean up his department after it was given a qualified opinion by the Auditor General (AG).

While a forensic auditing firm will conduct an audit of all internal processes since March 2005, a consultancy - Simeka Consulting is to be contracted to conduct a probe which would run until March 31 next year.

The consultancy, which Doidge said had previously done work for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the Department of Defence, would second senior personnel to the department to effect a skills transfer.

A service-level agreement was expected to be signed with the consultancy this week.

Doidge said the clean up included among other things the clearing of all expense accounts; weeding out of duplicate payments to service providers and getting the long overdue Property Management Trading Entity (PMTE) up and running. The department was requested by the National Treasury three years ago to have the entity set up.

Nigeria: Kano May Use Pfizer Compensation to Build Hospital - Kano state government may use part of 75million Pfizer compensation funds to build a hospital in the state. [AA Construction]

Zambia: Get Rid of Graft in Construction Sector - Minister - WORKS and Supply Minister, Mike Mulongoti has challenged the Engineering Institution of Zambia (EIZ) to protect the citizenry from shoddy works by some contractors and help rid corruption in the construction sector. [AA Construction]

South Africa: R6.6 Million Paid to Contractor Without Permission - The city council's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) has recommended corrective action against at least three of its officials involved in the payment of R6,6-million to a contractor without council permission. [AA Construction]

Zimbabwe: City in U.S.$100 Million Tender Scam - The City of Harare has dragged itself into a procurement scandal after it hired a Ukrainian investment company to construct Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Expressway, commonly known as Airport Road -- expected to chew US$100 million -- without going to tender and later appointed a company with links to key city authorities to manage the project. [AA Construction]

Global Witness to testify at Financial Services Committee Congressional Hearing

WASHINGTON DC: Some of the world's major banks, including Barclays and Citibank, have been facilitating corruption and undermining development in some of the worst-governed countries in the world, campaigning organisation Global Witness will testify to the U.S. House of Representatives' Financial Services Committee today (May 19).

Global Witness lead investigator, Anthea Lawson, will tell Committee members, including Chairman Barney Frank, that a catalogue of failures in the design and enforcement of anti-money laundering laws has enabled banks to help politicians from some of the world's most corrupt regimes to use government money to fund lavish lifestyles, while their populations live in poverty.

"The key factors allowing banks to do business with corrupt regimes are precisely those which allowed banks to destabilize the U.S. and other major economies […] People now agree that we need to reassess the way we regulate banks. We must also take this opportunity to tackle the way banks facilitate corruption, and thus help fuel poverty," said Ms Lawson.

LONDON, July 21, 2009 ( CISA) -The campaign group Global Witness released a report today detailing how European and Asian companies have been buying minerals from DR Congo that are funding armed groups and fuelling the deadly conflict.

The companies include Bangkok-based THAISARCO (a subsidiary of British metals group AMC), UK-based Afrimex, and Belgium-based Trademet.

The 110-page report, entitled ‘Faced with a gun, what can you do?’, details how companies are buying from suppliers who trade in minerals from the warring parties.

Many mining areas in eastern DRC are controlled by rebels and the national army, who violently exploit civilians to retain access to valuable minerals, including cassiterite (tin ore), coltan and gold. Cassiterite and coltan are used to make mobile phones, computers and other electronics, among other things.

South Africa: Scopa Demands Answers On N2 Gateway Project - Members of Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday expressed frustration with officials from the Department of Human Settlements over their failure to answer questions in connection with the multi-billion rand N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town. [AA Urbanisation]

6 July 2009

The Construction Education and Training Authority (CETA) was established in April 2000 as a public institution in terms of the Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998. An entity of this nature is audited by the Auditor General on an annual basis. CETA is scheduled to table the 2008/9 financials to Parliament's labour portfolio committee on Tuesday, 7 July 2009.

CETA is responding to allegations that have been brought against it for lax internal controls that have contributed towards the organisation's purported financial problems.

These allegations come at a time when CETA has been working tirelessly to upgrade and maintain its internal controls for the benefit of the organisation and its stakeholders. CEO, Petrus Maoko vehemently states that, "Controls are now in place. They are being improved upon day-by-day."

Zambia: Chipata Council Fraud Laid Bare - THE Chipata Municipal Council has unearthed a scam in which some employees in the accounts department have defrauded the local authority of millions of Kwacha through non-banking and issuing of fake receipts. [AA Urbanisation]

Nigeria: Construction Firm, Ex-Presidential Aide Named in Halliburton Scam - A foreign construction company operating in Nigeria has been implicated in the $180 million Halliburton bribe scandal. [AA Construction]

By Danielle Kurtzleben

Government corruption has long been a fact of life in Nigeria - elections are often fraught with fraud, intimidation, and violence; oil companies have been known to pay the military for assistance in suppressing protests; embezzling politicians steal money away from infrastructure services and programmes.

Despite the country's relative wealth, it lags behind comparable nations in basic infrastructure like electricity, health clinics and roads.

Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based advocacy organisation, sent a letter to Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, lambasting his administration for failing to implement anti-corruption measures.

Zambia: Construction is One of the Most Abused Sectors - THE construction industry in Zambia is among the most abused sectors of the economy particularly when it involves Government works. [AA Construction]

Uganda: Throw Kampala City Council Bums Out of Office - To take or not to take over the administration of Kampala City by the Central Government is an issue that has been simmering over the backburners for some time. [AA Urbanisation]

Nigeria: Disasters - Pitiable Rescue - THREE major reasons may be responsible for the levity with which governments treat incidents of collapsed buildings - relations of the dead are too poor to seek any legal redress, the owners of the building are too powerful, and the civil servants who issue illegal approvals protect themselves. [AA Construction]