down to bidness

Hi everyone,

I found out yesterday when I was attending an anti-corruption community meeting in Polokwane that I received my work clearance (woohoo!). So, 27 days after I arrived to start my USAID internship, I can actually start. Working for the Democracy and Governance office, I'm going to be updating and creating site sheets on the projects they sponsor, including one on trafficking in persons and another on the women's justice and empowerment initiative.

RTI, a USAID partner, ran the anti-corruption meeting I attended. It included members of the Polokwane municipality. Many of them were very outspoken about what can be done to fight corruption and fraud in the city. These are two big problems in local South African governance. Apparently most local government officials are considered crooks. The municipality has set up a hotline that anyone can call anonymously to report fraud in government. However, there seem to be two main concerns from the audience. 1) most did not believe their identity would truly be kept confidential, despite assurances to the contrary and 2) some said the hotline would be used to lodge petty or unfounded complaints against people the caller didn't like. Several people seemed to already have certain incidents in mind when they spoke, like officials using government cars for personal use.

In the end it was good just to get out of Pretoria and see more of South Africa. I second those complaints about feeling cooped up where I am. More later.

Jessica W.