Primedia initiative Lead SA and South African Twitter celebrity @pigspotter are working together to expose corrupt traffic officials by asking all South Africans to tweet reports of bribery to @corruptspotter.
Pigspotter tweeted this morning: “ATT all! LEADSA has decided to take OUR initiative and expose corrupt PIGs in RSA. So I'm taking this nationally, any info you have on corruption (leads we can follow on, like badge number, car reg/police number, date, time and location), bribes you've paid/ forced into paying, send info to @CORRUPTSPOTTER. All tweets will be treated confidentially, you know by now you CAN trust me! Cannot do this alone! We need ALL of you to be able to make a difference. Please RT this, and let's take the streets back!”
The Lead SA initiative was started shortly after the 2010 World Cup drew to a close. It centres on the idea that ordinary South Africans can make a difference and improve the country.
Lead SA recently ran a poll across Primedia radio stations and Independent publications, asking if readers and listeners had bribed a metro cop in the last three months. If they had, they were encouraged to report it anonymously, either by SMS or via an online poll.
Data was collected from 6am, 10 November, to 6pm, 11 November. A total of 2 474 people admitted to bribing a metro cop in the past three months. The majority of respondents hailed from Johannesburg with 1 889 admissions, followed by Ekurhuleni with 387.
Lead SA spokesperson and founder Yusuf Abramjee said in response to the results: “The figures highlight the extent of the problem. It's very worrying. We carried out this survey to get a good feel of how widespread corruption is. Almost 1 900 bribes were paid to JMPD cops over the past three months and there could be many more cases which we are not aware of. It's shockingly high.
“The time has come to clean-up the corrupt elements within our metro police departments. These people, who solicit and take bribes, are a disgrace to our nation. They need to be stripped of their uniforms and badges.”
Joburg-based tweeter Pigspotter made news headlines recently for tweeting tip-offs on where traffic officials were speed-trapping, as well as the location of roadblocks. After much controversy, Pigspotter agreed to stop tweeting road blocks, though continued to tweet warnings of speed traps, because he believes traffic officials to be corrupt. He has 29 695 Twitter followers.
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