IDO LEKOTA
A World Bank anti-corruption expert has told the Madlanga Commission that the South African Police disclosure system should be reviewed because its current forms and oversight processes are too narrow to expose unexplained wealth, especially where officials benefit from assets they do not officially own.
The expert, Dr Albertus Schoeman, said the system also appears to be failing in practice, because lifestyle reviews and audits have not been escalated into proper lifestyle audits over the past five.
Dr Schoeman’s concern is that the existing disclosure framework leaves loopholes, including the fact that the current financial disclosure form does not cover beneficial ownership. That means police officials can use assets without declaring them in a way that makes the ownership or control visible. He also argued that the sanctions and enforcement framework is ineffective, so even when red flags exist, the system does not seem to trigger meaningful accountability.
Schoeman’s appearance before the Madlanga Commission has added a significant anti-corruption perspective to the debate about policing, accountability and institutional reform in South Africa. As a World Bank anti-corruption expert, Schoeman did not merely identify weaknesses in the South African Police Service’s disclosure and integrity systems; he placed those weaknesses within a broader argument about the limits of current oversight mechanisms and the need for a stronger prevention architecture. His evidence pointed to a system that is not simply underperforming, but structurally unable to detect and deter certain forms of corruption effectively.
He avers the situation was compounded by a lot of fragmentations within the system are as a result of an incremental approach to reforming the system. According to him having an incremental approach to the system’s reform is not going to be enough because the system need a major overhaul including the establishment of a fulltime corruption prevention agency.
At the centre of Schoeman’s testimony was the argument that the SAPS disclosure system is too narrow, too weakly enforced and too easily circumvented. He reportedly highlighted loopholes in the financial disclosure forms used by senior police officials, noting that they fail to capture forms of beneficial ownership that may conceal unexplained wealth. In practical terms, this means an official can enjoy the use of assets, property or resources without those interests being transparently recorded in a way that allows proper scrutiny. That gap is not a technicality. In anti-corruption terms, it is precisely the kind of weakness that allows illicit enrichment to hide in plain sight.
Schoeman also drew attention to the absence of meaningful lifestyle audits within SAPS. The fact that no lifestyle audits had been conducted on senior officials over a five-year period is alarming not only because it suggests neglect, but because it reveals how corruption prevention can become performative rather than operational. A disclosure system without active verification becomes little more than a paperwork exercise.
Schoeman’s evidence implied that the institution may have forms, rules and reporting requirements, but not the investigative discipline or political will to convert them into deterrence. That distinction matters because corruption thrives where compliance exists on paper but not in practice.
His recommendations go beyond tightening administrative processes. Schoeman called for a broader review of the disclosure regime and, crucially, the establishment of a dedicated corruption prevention agency.
This proposal is significant because it recognises a recurring weakness in many public institutions: corruption control is often dispersed across units that are under-resourced, overburdened or compromised by internal conflicts of interest. A specialised agency would, in theory, provide a focused institutional home for prevention, risk detection, integrity testing and early intervention. Rather than waiting for corruption to mature into criminal scandal, such a body would aim to identify vulnerabilities before they become entrenched.
What makes Schoeman’s testimony especially important is that it reframes corruption as an institutional design problem, not only an ethical failure of individuals. That is a more demanding diagnosis, because it implies that reform must go deeper than removing a few compromised officials. It requires redesigning the systems through which integrity is monitored, verified and enforced. If the disclosure system is full of loopholes, and if audits are rare or nonexistent, then corruption is not merely a breach of rules — it is a predictable outcome of weak governance.
The Madlanga Commission has already exposed disturbing concerns about the penetration of criminal interests into the criminal justice system. Schoeman’s evidence adds a further layer: even where formal anti-corruption mechanisms exist, they may be too blunt, too fragmented or too weak to stop abuse. His testimony therefore strengthens the case for comprehensive reform. The review of SAPS disclosure systems, coupled with the creation of a corruption prevention agency, would signal a move toward a more serious state response — one that treats integrity not as a slogan, but as an operational necessity.
