South Africa watching something remarkable unfold

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) Chief Executive Officer Wayne Duvenage wrote that South Africa is watching something remarkable unfold.

“For once, corruption isn’t just being exposed from the outside. The system itself is beginning to turn on its own,” he wrote in his latest newsletter.

Duvenage referred to the Madlanga Commission and the related Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee, which are investigating corruption in the police and justice system.

The Madlanga Commission is an official Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference, and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced it in July 2025 to investigate allegations by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

The allegations included collusion and corruption among politicians, senior police officers, prosecutors, intelligence operatives, and elements of the judiciary.

The commission is in full swing, prying open the cupboards and back-room doors of law enforcement in the country.

“It shows how criminal networks have infiltrated the police, intelligence structures and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA),” Duvenage said.

He added that the SIU’s report on Tembisa Hospital has exposed to the nation how deep and easily the rot has penetrated a public healthcare procurement system.

Corruption through politically connected individuals has turned the Tembisa hospital into a criminal enterprise.

Nine syndicates and over 200 front companies siphoned more than R2 billion from Tembisa Hospital, enough to fund its operations for an entire year.

“These commissions, hearings and SIU exposés aren’t just scandals. They’re big events which display how truth is forcing its way to the surface,” Duvenage said.

He added that when that happens, it’s messy, uncomfortable, and the pace is often too slow.

The first in this series was the Zondo Commission, and the warnings and recommendations were not heeded.

This is the next in a series of sessions that will continue to generate the necessary heat for change.

Outa commits to fighting for the truth

Duvenage said that they live in the space between discovery, exposure, and consequence at Outa.

“Our job is to widen the cracks until the need for accountability can no longer be ignored,” the Outa CEO said.

“It takes us into the space of working with whistleblowers, compiling reports, media statements, public protests and court action.”

“Other times, it means months of quiet legal work, or compiling submissions to Parliament and other oversight bodies, that only make headlines years later.”

One such project includes a constitutional challenge to close an accountability loophole in the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

OUTA has launched a landmark court action to amend the PFMA so that executives and board members of all state-owned entities can face delinquency bans for misconduct.

Right now, this power exists only under the Companies Act, which applies to SOEs like SAA and the Johannesburg Property Company, but not to PFMA entities such as NSFAS or the SETAs.

That legal blind spot protects the worst offenders and allows them to resurface elsewhere in government.

If successful, this case will extend accountability across every SOE and stop repeat offenders from looting the public purse again.

This change could hold every SOE executive to the same legal standards pertaining to fiduciary duties as any company director.

“Accountability is a long, uphill climb. But with persistence and the right people holding and shining the light, the truth always finds a way out,” he said.