Cape Town - About 250 senior managers are currently undergoing anti-corruption training, as part of government's efforts to root out crime in the public service.
The training, which is in partnership between the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy (Palama) and Canadian International Development Agency, seeks to instil ethics among the senior officials.
"Ethics training is one of the requirements for preventing corruption in the public service," explained Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi.
Named the Public Sector Anti-corruption Capacity Building Programme, the programme consists of three distinct courses, namely, training programme for general employees, training programme for anti-corruption practitioners and training programme for law enforcement officials.
About R20 million has been secured from the Canadian International Development Agency to conduct anti-corruption training over a period of five years.
"We will not tolerate or condone the abuse of public trust and public resources by any public official," said Baloyi, adding that government did not rule out the possibility of amending the legislation to protect whistleblowers.
He said most of the wrongdoing occurs when public officials do not comply with existing regulations.
According to Baloyi, Palama is also developing a Graduate Development Programme targeting unemployed graduates to prepare them for learnerships and jobs within the public service.
This is in addition to the partnership with National Treasury in the redesign of the Standard Charter of Accounts to improve audit performance across government.
South Africa's civil servants have scored more than half-a-billion rand in government tenders, which were irregularly awarded to their spouses and relatives, a report by the issued in April by Auditor General Terence Nombembe found.
