Pretoria - Two weeks into his new job, advocate Vas Soni, the head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), moved to reassure MPs about the unit’s finances and previously tense staff relations.
During Thursday’s briefing on the SIU 2012/13 annual report to the justice committee, Soni maintained the unit would have to be re-invented to play its rightful role in the war against corruption, malpractice and maladministration.
He promised there would soon be a chief financial officer, even if it was an acting appointment, after the job was left vacant for about a year.
However, Soni did not detail staff-related issues - junior forensic investigators have taken the SIU to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and several cases are pending before the public protector.
The spotlight has always fallen on the vacancies at the helm of the SIU.
Until October 1, 2013, that post was filled in an acting capacity for about 19 months after President Jacob Zuma’s earlier choice, advocate Willem Heath, resigned at the end of 2011 amid controversy over his comments that former president Thabo Mbeki had been behind charging Zuma with corruption and rape.
The comments were dismissed as “defamatory”, “malicious” and devoid of truth by Mbeki.
Deputy SIU head Faiek Davids, who returned to the post after a drawn-out CCMA case against his former boss Willie Hofmeyr, said he and Soni had met senior managers and staff in a series of meetings over staff matters and the SIU’s direction.
Davids acknowledged “it was work in progress”, but employee relations were improving.
Of the R9.2 million irregular expenditure during 2013, about R8.6m was spent on temporary employees, a cost the SIU said it would reduce.
The just over R822 000 spent on forensic data analysis software was determined as fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
However, during the 2012/13 financial year the SIU recovered R171.6m and prevented future losses of R378.2m during its investigations of dodgy procurement contracts worth R2.6 billion.
The SIU currently has 25 active investigations, but as of June 2013, closed 29 probes by submitting its reports to the president, as is legally required.
Another 12 reports are being finalised.
Its investigations include public works nationally and in KwaZulu-Natal, where the unit identified irregularities of R542.5m, the South African Social Security Agency, where to date there have been more than 3 400 unlawfully benefiting grant recipients, as well as probes into several provincial departments and municipalities, including Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.
DA MP Debbie Schäfer said she welcomed the open approach and accountability by both Soni and Davids.
“Instead of the usual denials of any problems in the unit, both were quite frank about the issues they are facing, and assured us that they are dealing with them.
“The annual report showed quite clearly that the concerns we have been raising over the last two years were completely justified,” she said.
Pretoria News