The Democratic Alliance (DA) has introduced the Constitution Twenty-First Amendment Bill - also known as the "Anti-Corruption Bill" - to Parliament.

As promised in our 2024 Election Manifesto, the Bill seeks to introduce an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) as an independent, Chapter 9 institution, focused solely on investigating and prosecuting serious corruption cases.

Currently, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is the only institution with the power to prosecute those accused of serious corruption and high-level organised crime. In practice, however, the NPA lacks the institutional independence or the resources to effectively prosecute these complex crimes.

The DA's Anti-Corruption Bill seeks to rectify this by creating a fully independent Chapter 9 institution, with its sole mandate being the investigation and prosecution of high-level perpetrators.

Key provisions of the Bill also include that:

the ACC shall be both institutionally and operationally independent; meaning that it will have its own staff and its budget will be determined by the National Treasury and not according to the whims of the Minister or the President;

the members of the ACC will have protected tenure and be subject and responsible only to the Constitution and the rule of law; and

the ACC shall be able not only to investigate but also to prosecute these serious cases.

After the madness of the "State Capture" years, the effects of which we are still feeling, it is high time that we take our country's battle against corruption to a higher gear. By creating a new unit, expertly staffed and fully independent, with the same status as the Auditor-General or the Public Protector, we can tackle these high-level crimes head-on and further strengthen our democracy free of corruption.