The National Prosecuting Authority has defended the donation made by Steinhoff to investigators to probe its collapse a few years ago.
This followed reports that retail giant Steinhoff had given the Hawks R30 million to probe fraud and corruption at the company.
Head of the NPA Shamila Batohi told the standing committee on public accounts on Wednesday there was nothing wrong with this move.
This followed questions from members of Scopa on how the NPA and the Hawks would allow a company under investigation to give it money.
“The NPA did not receive any funding from Steinhoff. The practice of forensic accounting firms being commissioned by companies to deal with these kinds of forensic analyses and exercises is not unusual. In this particular case PwC was involved for a long time in terms of funding in terms of finalising a report on the mandate of Steinhoff,” said Batohi.
“The mandate was not to look at criminality. It was an accounting-driven report, so to speak,” she said.
She added that they had put in place measures to ensure those who were implicated in corruption and fraud at Steinhoff would not negatively influence the investigation conducted by PwC.
She said some of the people had already left the company.
In addition, PwC has signed an agreement with the law enforcement agency that they would not disclose any information on the investigation to third parties.
POLITICAL BUREAU