Like many other countries, South Africa depends heavily on its public procurement system and faces persistent issues of corruption within that system. Its regulatory regimes for public procurement and for anti-corruption are nonetheless distinct. Despite knowledge of significant corruption in the final decades of apartheid, anti-corruption was treated as a secondary rather than a primary objective in the initial phase of post-apartheid reform and design of public procurement. Rules against corruption in public procurement have largely taken the form of criminal offences in the anti-corruption regime, and the form of administrative rules internal to government within the public procurement system, neither of which has been effective. The lack of attention to the overlap of these two regimes has created the potential for continued growth of corruption in public procurement. As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to the grand corruption termed ‘state capture’, the South African government has recently introduced several measures and strengthened institutions to address corruption linked to public procurement; these are more investigative and ad-hoc than systemic and preventative. Finally, we briefly describe and then examine the place of information technology in South African public procurement, particularly in advancing the anti-corruption goal.

ResumenEl presente trabajo pretende reflexionar sobre los desafíos que la sociedad atravesada por las tecnologías le presenta a las prácticas educativas. Para esto nos introduciremos en el contexto uruguayo y en el Plan CEIBAL específicamente, como ejemplo de una política educativa que busca acompasar la educación con la realidad actual.Como futuros docentes de Historia, nos interesa profundizar en la educación en y con las tecnologías como alternativa didáctica para superar las dificultades pedagógicas que se plantean a partir de los obstáculos historiográficos que presenta la Edad Media.palabras clave NTIC, sociedad de la información, sociedad del conocimiento, Plan CEIBAL, enseñanza de la Edad Media. 2ICTs as a tool in the teaching of history: Proposals to approach the Middle ages Abstract This paper intends to reflect upon the challenges that society, crossed by technologies, presents to educational practices. For this purpose, we immerse ourselves in the Uruguayan context, particularly in «Plan CEIBAL», as an example of an educational policy that seeks to encompass education with today's reality.As future History teachers, we find it interesting to go deeper into education in and with technologies as a methodological alternative to overcome the pedagogical difficulties that arise from the historiographical obstacles presented by the Middle Ages.

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This short book analyses three distinct and key features of the state: the system of appointment and removal in the public service and municipalities, high-level appointments and removals within the criminal justice sector, and public procurement. A state’s politics and its capacities are constituted in important ways by how it fills its public administrative offices (including its prosecution service) and purchases its necessities. The book, considering outcomes in South Africa, advocates for specific reforms in each area. It argues that the timely consideration and adoption of reforms along these lines is an urgent task. With that in mind, the book has been written chiefly for two audiences: both for activists keen to build a state which can play its role in advancing the progressive transformation of South African society, and for scholars who are interested in understanding the character and possibilities of the evolving South African public administration.