Public procurement and corruption : the South African response

The purpose of this article is to examine corruption within public \nprocurement and the measures that may be used to address it, in particular, \nthe South African response to procurement corruption in the Prevention and \nCombating of Corrupt Activities Act 2004. The first part of the article briefly defines corruption and then considers the kinds of corrupt activity occurring in public procurement and the range of measures that may be adopted against this kind of corruption. Finally, the article critically examines an important legislative response to procurement corruption, namely the requirement in the Corruption Act for excluding persons who have been convicted of corruption from obtaining public contracts, and concludes with an assessment of the utility of this requirement.