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Today, the DA launched a new whistle blower portal where members of the public can submit information about corrupt, fraudulent and suspicious government tenders.

This follows accounting officers failure to blacklist companies implicated in dodgy tenders.

The ‘Blacklist Project’ gives South Africans a direct way to help expose wrongdoing.

Information submitted will not be published. Instead, the DA will use it to pursue accountability through Parliament and relevant institutions, including the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the Auditor-General.

In 2004, Parliament passed legislation establishing a Register for Tender Defaulters. Twenty-two years later, that register remains empty. Despite countless corruption scandals and investigations, companies and individuals implicated in wrongdoing continue securing government contracts.

This is not a failure of legislation, but a failure of political will to act.

By September 2025, the SIU had recommended that 467 companies and individuals be restricted from doing business with the state, but only one had been added to National Treasury's Database of Restricted Suppliers. A year later, little has changed: of the 509 referrals sent to Treasury, only 18 have been blacklisted, while 491 remain under review, which was confirmed by the Minister of Finance in September 2026.

At Tembisa Hospital, approximately R2 billion flowed to 207 suppliers through 4,501 purchase orders, yet none of these suppliers had been blacklisted.

Meanwhile, municipal irregular, unauthorised and wasteful expenditure reached R268 billion in 2024/25, while the number of municipalities making criminal referrals fell from 37 to 20.

The consequences are felt by ordinary South Africans through unfinished infrastructure, failing services and wasted public money, while honest small businesses struggle to compete against suppliers implicated in wrongdoing.

Furthermore, the DA is calling for five urgent reforms:

- Blacklist individuals behind corrupt companies, not only the companies themselves.
- Introduce strict deadlines for referring suppliers for restriction.
- Publicly identify departments and municipalities that fail to act.
- Establish a live, searchable blacklist linked to the Central Supplier Database.
- Ensure honest suppliers are paid on time.

The DA will continue our parliamentary oversight, tabling questions and demanding answers from officials responsible for safeguarding public funds. The DA will also write to key accounting officers at institutions implicated in major scandals, demanding answers about blacklisting decisions and failures to act.

Public money must serve South Africans, not enrich those who exploit the state. The DA will keep pushing for a system where corruption has consequences and repeat offenders are held accountable.

Issued by DA Deputy Spokesperson on Finance Wendy Alexander