IDAC's problem isn't the law - it's the institution - IOL
IDAC is an example of how institutional failures overshadow legal frameworks in the quest for electoral integrity in South Africa.
The troubling allegations emerging from the Madlanga Commission about the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, known as IDAC, point to a problem extending far beyond one organisation. They expose a broader institutional challenge found across both the public and private sectors: organisations are often better at creating structures than at building the institutional capability required to make them work.
We develop strategies, approve organograms, define reporting lines, and adopt governance frameworks. These measures are necessary, but they do not create an effective institution. That requires ethical leadership, capable people, clear accountability, institutional memory, and the daily discipline to turn a mandate into practice.
IDAC was established in 2019 as a specialised, multidisciplinary unit within the National Prosecuting Authority. Its original purpose was to investigate and prosecute serious, complex, and prominent cases of corruption, particularly those arising from commissions of inquiry, including the State Capture Commission.
In 2024, the National Prosecuting Authority Amendment Act transformed IDAC from a temporary structure into a permanent investigating directorate within the NPA, and granted it criminal investigative powers. Its mandate is formidable: IDAC investigates serious corruption and complex commercial or financial crime and, where the evidence supports it, institutes criminal proceedings. Its work includes matters referred by the National Director of Public Prosecutions, cases arising from commissions of inquiry, and other offences lawfully assigned to it.
The problem is that IDAC's legal powers and organisational structure may have developed faster than its institutional capability.
Evidence and allegations presented to the Madlanga Commission have raised concerns about the possible leaking of sensitive case information, questionable use of investigative powers, failures to comply with statutory mandates and case-intake criteria, and weaknesses in internal supervision. Several officials have been suspended pending disciplinary proceedings, while the government has announced an audit of IDAC's cases and authorisations.
These remain allegations and must be tested through fair and lawful processes. Nevertheless, they demand more than explanations about individual conduct. They require an examination of the institutional environment in which such vulnerabilities could develop.
A structure can be created by law. Positions can be funded, reporting lines approved, and job descriptions written. An institution, however, is built through the quality of its leadership, the competence and integrity of its people, the strength of its systems, and the conduct it rewards or tolerates.
This distinction lies at the heart of the Institutional Powerhouse Modelβ’, developed in my forthcoming book, Human Resources as a Powerhouse. The model argues that sustainable performance depends on the alignment of strategy, leadership, people, culture, governance, and capability. Weakness in one area eventually places the whole institution at risk.
IDAC's transition from a temporary directorate to a permanent body required more than amended legislation. It required a managed institutional transition, including clear authority, rigorous recruitment and vetting, proper induction, documented procedures, independent quality assurance, secure information systems, and effective consequence management.
Targeted recruitment must actively seek scarce expertise in financial investigations, forensic accounting, digital evidence, organised-crime analysis, and corruption prosecutions. This must be reinforced by competency- and integrity-based recruitment. Selection should test not only qualifications and experience, but also judgement, ethical resilience, conflicts of interest, professional history, and the ability to handle sensitive information. In an institution entrusted with extraordinary investigative powers, character is part of competence.
IDAC's multidisciplinary structure also presents risks. Prosecutors, investigators, analysts, and forensic specialists come from different professional traditions. Placing them within one organogram does not automatically create a cohesive institution. Without clearly defined roles and decision-making authority, accountability can become fragmented, and informal relationships may become more influential than formal processes.
Anti-corruption investigations require considerable confidentiality. Yet confidentiality must never become a shield from internal accountability. Decisions about which cases to accept, how investigative powers are authorised, who may access sensitive information, and how that information is shared must be recorded and independently reviewed.
Where too much authority or institutional knowledge is concentrated in a few individuals, personal relationships may replace formal controls. Access may become influence, and discretion may override procedure. Without reliable audit trails, it becomes difficult to establish who made a decision, what informed it, and whether that person had the authority to make it.
This is why human resources governance cannot be dismissed as mere administration. In an institution with extensive investigative powers, decisions about recruitment, vetting, deployment, performance, ethics, and discipline form part of the country's anti-corruption architecture.
Security vetting should not be a single exercise completed at appointment. It should be reinforced through regular conflict-of-interest declarations, secure information controls, monitoring of risk in sensitive positions, and credible protection for whistleblowers. Leadership must also create an environment in which questioning an irregular instruction is understood as loyalty to the institution, not insubordination toward an individual.
The answer is not necessarily to abolish IDAC. South Africa still needs a specialist body capable of investigating and prosecuting sophisticated corruption. Closing it could destroy valuable expertise, disrupt major cases, and create an institutional vacuum that would benefit the very networks it was established to confront.
What is required is a credible institutional rebuild. The announced case audit and disciplinary proceedings are necessary, but they should form part of a wider capability review. Parliament and the public deserve clarity on IDAC's governance arrangements, case-intake procedures, delegations of authority, information-security controls, personnel vetting, and the safeguards governing the use of investigative powers.
This moment must not be reduced to removing a few officials and replacing them with others. If the institutional weaknesses remain, the same failures may return under different leadership.
An organogram cannot lead people. Legislation cannot manufacture integrity. Strategy cannot implement itself. Governance has little value when accountability does not live in daily practice.
That is perhaps the most important lesson from IDAC: the strength of an institution is measured not by the powers written into its mandate, but by the discipline, integrity, and competence with which those powers are exercised.
Sithembiso Nzimande is a seasoned human resources leader with more than 25 years of experience in organisational design, wage negotiations, and institutional development. He is the author of Human Resources as a Powerhouse.
