84% of the entrants felt strongly about the state of corruption in the country, a fact which is borne out by statics from the global organisation, Transparency International, which ranked South Africa 72nd out of 177 countries in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
The overwhelming sentiment from LIPCO's presidential candidates is that corruption is damaging the country's reputation and acts as an obstacle to foreign investment, flows to the stock market, global competitiveness, economic growth and ultimately to the development and upliftment of our people. LIPCO has enabled entrants to represent portions of their communities by putting their views across and allowing them to be creative and innovative on how they think corruption could be curtailed within their communities and in South Africa as a whole.
The entrants say that corruption has a devastating effect on the poor and that because corruption costs government and tax payers millions every year, service delivery is affected as the millions could and should be spent on service delivery. They are very passionate about making a difference and have mentioned some of the government departments where they think corruption is most prominent and how they feel it could be curtailed.
The candidates also felt that platforms where people can report corruption need to be easily accessible; another entrant suggested that a court which specially deals with corruption should be created and that it should impose strict sentences for those who are found guilty.
A significant number of the entrants also placed emphasis on how important it is that the education and health sectors is improved. They said that as president they would build more schools, especially around the more disadvantaged areas, where they would ensure that pupils are equipped with skills and knowledge which would in future help them to penetrate into the fruits of a developing country and its economy. The entrants said that the biggest obstacle with these sectors was their accessibility and that availability of transportation played an essential role in service delivery.
