Terms of Use

The site is operated by Just Like That Productions (Pty) Ltd, trading as JLT IT ("the operator"), South Africa. Contact: hello@scamsa.org (general); corrections@scamsa.org (corrections and information requests); reply@scamsa.org (right of reply).

S.C.A.M. (Scorecard for Corruption & Accountability Monitoring) is an informational civic-accountability dashboard. It collates publicly reported, documented corruption-related matters involving members of South Africa's parliamentary parties, and assigns each matter a weight according to its procedural status so that the totals can be compared consistently.

It is a reference tool for citizens, journalists and researchers. It is not a legal database, not a news service, and not a substitute for court records or official reports.

Nothing on this site is legal advice and nothing here should be relied on for any legal, financial, electoral or professional decision. If you need advice about a matter referred to here, consult a qualified attorney and the primary records.

People recorded here as charged, implicated or accused are presumed innocent until a competent court or tribunal finds otherwise. Entries describe the status of public allegations and legal or ethics processes — they are not findings of guilt, and the site does not assert that any individual is guilty of anything.

Where a matter is resolved — charges withdrawn, an acquittal, an adverse finding set aside — it is marked as resolved, remains visible for the record, and no longer contributes points to any score.

The weighting system, the scores and the resulting ranking are the operator's own editorial methodology and editorial opinion about the relative public-record scrutiny of parliamentary parties. They are a way of organising publicly reported information, and are not a factual assertion that any party, or any individual belonging to a party, is guilty of corruption or of any other conduct. A high or low position on the leaderboard reflects what has been publicly reported and how this project chooses to weight it — nothing more.

The data is compiled from public sources and is offered "as is", without warranty of any kind. It is expressly not exhaustive: parties and individuals attracting more media and prosecutorial attention may appear more often here simply because more has been reported about them.

The default weights and the reasoning behind them are set out on the leaderboard's methodology section, and you can change the weights yourself to see how sensitive the ranking is to them.

The site is provided as a voluntary civic project. It may be modified, updated, suspended or discontinued, in whole or in part, at any time and at the operator's discretion. No guarantee of continuous or uninterrupted availability is given, and the operator is not liable for any loss arising from the site being unavailable.

To the fullest extent permitted by South African law, the operator of this site will not be liable to you for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss or damage (including loss of profit, reputation, data or goodwill) arising out of or in connection with your use of, or inability to use, the site or anything published on it. Where liability cannot lawfully be excluded, it is limited, to the fullest extent permitted by law, to the greatest extent possible, and in any event nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

You agree to indemnify the operator of this site only against claims, losses or reasonable legal costs arising from your own unlawful use of the site or its data — for example, a submission you make that you know to be false or defamatory, or an unlawful republication of the data.

Every case entry carries a source label and a "last verified" date. The full dataset, methodology note and suggested citation are available on the open data page.

If you believe an entry is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, use the corrections process or the flag-a-case form. Corrections are handled by a person; nothing submitted is published automatically.

If you are considering legal action over an entry, we would genuinely invite you to use the corrections process first — most disputes can be resolved that way faster and less expensively than through the courts. This is an invitation, not a precondition: you remain free to pursue any remedy available to you at any time.

You may read, quote, and reuse the published data with attribution. You may not use the site to harass, threaten or defame any person, submit knowingly false or unsourced material, attempt to interfere with the site's operation or security, or scrape it in a way that degrades service for others.

The site is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly accept submissions or collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18.

No party logos or emblems are used anywhere on this site. Parties are represented by colour chips and abbreviations designed for this dashboard, and no affiliation with or endorsement by any party is implied.

Donations are voluntary and are received by Just Like That Productions (Pty) Ltd (trading as JLT IT). The operator is not a registered non-profit or public benefit organisation, so donations are not tax-deductible. Card and online payments are processed on PayFast's own payment page and PayFast issues the receipt. EFT donations are made directly to the company's bank account. Donations give no influence over what is published or how it is scored, and are not accepted from political parties, candidates or their representatives.

These terms and any dispute arising out of your use of the site are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The courts of South Africa have exclusive jurisdiction over any such dispute.

If any provision of these terms is found by a competent court to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable, that provision will be severed and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

These terms, together with the privacy policy and the corrections policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and the operator regarding the site, and supersede any prior understanding on that subject.

These terms may be updated as the project develops. Continued use after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.