Cape Town - The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in State institutions has shown worrying levels of corruption in the country, says the Special Investigations Unit.
The SIU briefed the portfolio committee on justice on Tuesday.
SIU head advocate Andy Mothibi said a PPE investigation report was submitted to President Cyril Ramaphosa on April 30.
He explained that the report consists of a combination of finalised and ongoing investigations. The contract value of allegations of irregular contracts stands at R14.2 billion.
“We’ve made significant progress and shown outcomes. We will present these findings to the committee at an appropriate time.”
Digging deeper, the SIU’s Chief Legal Counsel Jerome Wells said there are currently 15 matters before the Special Tribunal to the value of R365 million.
“To date, several preservation orders have been handed down by the Tribunal. In total, 13, but notably what the Tribunal has done is also issue preservation orders and two of those have significantly been issued this year totalling in excess R44 million. Both of those matters are presently pending and appeals have been lodged in both those matters.
“There are a number of other cases where we have also frozen monies that have been deposited into accounts by various service providers for officials of state institutions and those accounts have also been frozen.
“Just to highlight the importance of the tribunal is that the number of cases finalised despite the Covid-19 conditions that prevail is much more significant than what we’ve experienced by our litigation in terms of the high courts.”
Wells said that in matters before the tribunal relating to PPE and others, 13 orders have already been issued within a period of eight to 12 months.
“The significance of all of this is helped by the judges that have been appointed in the tribunal, their cases are actively case managed and the time period for matters to be finalised is much shorter and the impact is greater."