Corruption Watch

Episode 3 - Spotlight on 2024 elections: What's different this time?

In this third episode, Corruption Watch's executive director Karam Singh sits down with Robyn Pasensie from My Vote Counts and independent candidate Zackie Achmat in a lively discussion and analysis of South Africa's recent elections. The group talks about party funding and sources of campaign money, trends in terms of right and left politics, questionable appointments to parliamentary committees. what to expect in the fight against corruption going forward, and more.

Episode 2 - Spotlight on 2024 elections: What's different this time?

In this episode, Corruption Watch executive director Karam Singh is in discussion with Nicki van ‘t Riet, the organisation’s head of Legal and Investigations, and Dan Mafora from the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC). They discuss Dan’s new book that looks at a variety of issues relating to populism and the judiciary, which in turn informs a broader election discussion on the recent IEC vs MK Party judgment which found former president Jacob Zuma ineligible to stand for elections. They further discuss political parties’ election manifestos and expectations for the upcoming poll.

Episode 1 - Spotlight on 2024 elections: What's different this time?

In this first episode, Corruption Watch executive director Karam Singh sits down with Robyn Pasensie from My Vote Counts, to talk us through the reasons this election stands out from those in the past. They discuss new regulations by which parties need to abide, including disclosure of party funding, and we hear how independents are now able to enter the race and what this means for the elections and South Africa's democracy.

Episode 5: Land and Corruption: Story of the marginalised

As we have established in previous episodes of this moving and thought-provoking series about land corruption in South Africa, poor and marginalised communities have received a raw deal in their quest for inclusion and equality in the land equity dynamic since the dawn of democracy. The stories of beneficiaries told throughout the series are testament to severe hardships, misery, and exclusion, and the absence of accountable leadership from those responsible for this neglect and abject failure to ensure equality and justice for farmworkers. This episode explores how policies introduced along with the new democratic order could inadvertently be responsible for the continued suffering of labour tenants and other social groups trying to access and own land. This in spite of the constitutional safeguards put in place to mitigate the very hardships that are now experienced by the rural poor. Experts discuss the problems at hand, and some of the solutions that have been put in place.

Episode 4: Land and Corruption: Story of the marginalised

In episode 4 of this important podcast series, the focus is on the living conditions of farmworkers, in particular the beneficiaries of farm worker equity schemes, and how they are consistently denied what is due to them as shareholders. The team held numerous interviews with beneficiaries on various farms in the Western Cape, notably in the Matzikama and Witzenberg areas. Despite the Witzenberg municipality being one of the wealthiest farm areas and biggest deciduous producer in the country, the gap between the rich and poor in the region and the dire conditions of farm workers is put into stark relief. We hear from farmworkers who speak about working on farms for their whole lives, and leaving with a fraction of what is due to them. Different equity schemes and partnerships, managed by prominent commercial businesses, are discussed, revealing the sad reality that farm workers have been left feeling misled.