In South Africa’s struggling anti-corruption landscape, leadership and operational independence are among the factors enabling the unit’s success.
In a country where anti-corruption enforcement is floundering, outgunned or captured, one agency keeps delivering good results – the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
Entering its headquarters in Pretoria, it is easy to see how the SIU is different from many other government agencies. The modern building is a beehive of energy – staff bustle around with purpose and direction.
The question is why this agency stands out from the rest. New Institute for Security Studies research undertaken in cooperation with the SIU seeks to provide answers.
SIU Head Andy Mothibi tells stories about how he began his career at the South African Revenue Service (SARS). As a young lawyer at SARS, he looked up to leaders like the late Pravin Gordhan, who instilled staff with an ethic of serving a ‘higher purpose.’ Mothibi says this legacy lives on at the SIU.
Leadership is important for the success of all organisations, but it is especially important for anti-corruption agencies. The ‘tone from the top’ must be courageous, motivated, and honest.
Fulfilling statutory requirements, qualifications, and experience is not enough. Leaders must also possess superior human relations skills, resilience and the ability to inspire. Mothibi is evidently a strong leader whose staff are willing to follow him into the difficult terrain of anti-corruption enforcement.
The SIU has an organisational culture of excellence, integrity and innovation. Lifelong learning is incentivised, and many staff members pursue advanced degrees part-time.
There are other drivers of the SIU’s success. The unit uses civil law to recover debts owed to the state. This means it only has to prove cases on a balance of probabilities. This is a lower threshold than the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has to meet in criminal corruption cases, which is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ Civil recovery processes have the potential to recover more assets than criminal processes.
The SIU has independence over its finances and human resources. It can make its own decisions about who to hire and how much to pay them, and is therefore successful at attracting talent.
This is another advantage the SIU has over its partners in the fight against corruption, such as the NPA. The latter is relegated to a programme of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, and subject to its control – a situation that also requires remedy.
Another driver of the SIU’s success is that its investigations are activated only by presidential proclamations. This means the unit cannot threaten presidents or their allies. This may have protected the SIU from political interference in the past. However, as our research shows, this also compromises its independence.
The SIU submits requests for a presidential proclamation to the justice department as part of a bureaucratic process of assessing them and forwarding them to the president. This delays the start of investigations and provides opportunities for people to hide the proceeds of corruption and destroy evidence.
One way to improve the SIU’s performance is to eliminate the ‘middleman’ and empower the SIU to send requests for presidential proclamations straight to the presidency.
There are other ways to improve the SIU’s performance. The unit makes recommendations to the government institutions it investigates on remedial action. Its work would be even more effective were these recommendations binding, like those of the Public Protector.
The SIU currently faces a cash crunch linked to the increasing number of investigations it has been authorised to conduct, combined with an ineffective funding model. The SIU bills the state institutions it investigates for the work it has done. Unsurprisingly, many are unwilling to pay. The SIU’s funding model must be changed to allow the unit to keep a percentage of funds recovered, as some anti-corruption agencies in other countries do.
Most importantly, the safety of SIU personnel and whistleblowers is a serious concern. The safety of staff and witnesses should be a non-negotiable imperative of anti-corruption enforcement in a country where fiscal survival depends on reducing corruption, and assassination is often used to resolve disputes.
The SIU fills a strategic gap in South Africa’s anti-corruption institutional architecture. South Africa does not yet have a dedicated anti-corruption prevention agency, even though the United Nations Convention against Corruption provides that it should. With corruption, prevention is better than cure, and over time, the SIU’s work has evolved to cover this terrain.
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This essential work, plus the SIU’s reputation for effectiveness, may be why the president’s National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (NACAC) recommends that the SIU become South Africa’s new dedicated anti-corruption agency.
At the National Anti-Corruption Dialogue on 9-10 December 2024, NACAC Chair Firoz Cachalia proposed a new independent anti-corruption prevention agency: the Office of Public Integrity. NACAC recommends that the new agency be a Chapter 9 institution with similar levels of independence to the Public Protector. It should absorb the SIU with all its current functions, enabling the new agency to start immediately.
As NACAC nears the end of its term in August 2025, this recommendation comes amid increased allegations about corruption in the criminal justice system. We are in a moment when leadership, independence, and building trust in South Africa’s justice institutions matter.
Will President Cyril Ramaphosa seize this moment to fulfil his promises to establish a new anti-corruption agency? South Africa’s long-awaited anti-corruption reform moment could be just around the corner.
Colette Ashton, Research Consultant, Justice and Violence Prevention Programme, ISS Pretoria
