The recent arrest of the Executive Mayor of the Nkangala District Municipality in Mpumalanga, Thembi Masilela, along with eight others in Middelburg underscores the FF Plus's demand that lifestyle audits must be conducted on all provincial and municipal officials.
Masilela and her co-accused are charged with theft, forgery and violating the Public Financial Management Act.
The arrest is just the latest on a long list of ANC officials who have been charged with alleged corruption in Mpumalanga over the course of the last year.
The FF Plus has reminded the Premier of Mpumalanga, Refilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane, of her undertaking to conduct lifestyle audits on all officials on several occasions and the party also tabled a motion on the matter in the Legislature last week.
In addition, the party requested that a deadline must be determined for the lifestyle audits and that officials found guilty of corruption must not be let off on just a warning or a fine.
Furthermore, these audits must not only focus on officials who deal directly with the public, but also on all other officials, regardless of what type of office they hold, so as to ensure that all forms of crime are eradicated.
The FF Plus believes that if the Premier had conducted the lifestyle audits as she had promised, a lot of corruption and corrupt officials would have come to light.
Due to the clandestine nature of corruption, it is really difficult to measure the true cost of it and exactly how much of taxpayers' money has been stolen may never be known.
The direct result of the high level of corruption is that new local and foreign investors are less likely to invest in the province, which is something that Mpumalanga desperately needs to stimulate its economic growth.
