Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said a ‘service provider’ had been appointed to conduct lifestyle audits on the provincial cabinet, as he had promised before the 2019 election.
Nexus Forensic Services had been appointed via a ‘thorough’ tender process.
The lifestyle audits of provincial MECS was ‘part of our clean governance and transparency journey’, Winde said in a statement.
Winde added: ‘It is vitally important to me that the residents of this country feel that they have leaders they can trust, especially in light of evidence of state capture and allegations of corruption in the public service. As the Western Cape, we want to set a new standard for anti-corruption.
‘Through these audits we are aiming to build a financial and behavioural profile that we can replicate at the end of the term again to determine whether leaders have unfairly benefited from their position.’
The audits would include a ‘study of total income sources, large or significant expenditure or transactions, business interests, personal investments, individual assets such as property, vehicles, collectibles, cash and others, tax compliance, and financial liability’ It would also review foreign travel, hospitality and material benefits.
Winde said there had been some ‘initial delays’ in appointing the service provider, ‘but I am satisfied that we now have an experienced service provider on board and am pleased that we can start setting an example to other government leaders’.
A statement on the outcome of the audits was expected to be released in late March.
[Picture: Staff photographer for the Democratic Alliance, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76477723]