THE fraud and corruption permeating sections of the public service linked to PPE looting needs to be dealt with speedily to ensure culprits are brought to book warned head of Special Investigating Unit (SIU) .
This week, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) made yet another appearance before the parliamentary watchdog body who has oversight on the state finances.
They gave a report to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on the procurement of PPE and the health department’s communications contract awarded to service provider Digital Vibes.
The briefing took place on the expectation that action must be taken against those responsible for bleeding the state’s coffers.
It was, however, overshadowed by the killing of a personal protective equipment (PPE) whistle-blower in the Gauteng Health Department over a week ago.
The SIU report showed that R138 billion was spent on PPE procurement, R133.7bn in national and provincial departments and R5.1bn in municipalities.
SIU head Andy Mothibi said the total value of the contracts being investigated stood at R14.8bn.
“Of this value already investigated, about R1.39bn has been referred to the Special Tribunal.
“The investigation has progressed such that already the contract value of cases at the Special Tribunal is R1.139, the cases are processed at the necessary speed by the SIU,” said Mothibi.
Mothibi showed that the number of PPE contracts awarded for Covid-19 related services under investigation was currently 4 302, awarded to 2 421 service providers.
“About 30% of these contracts have been finalised, 62 % are ongoing investigations and only 7.9% have yet to commence as at the end of June.”
Mothibi said the most important part was to monitor the implementation of referrals so that they could achieve the impact they wanted to see.
However, Mothibi said the pace at which these matters were being attended to was really worrisome.
“We are really concerned that matters are not attended to speedily and we would like to urge state institutions to implement the consequence management on officials that are found to have committed wrong doing.”
Mothibi said some state entities should be called to account with implementation of consequence management.
Scopa heard that there were 88 referrals for disciplinary action after their last report, bringing the total number to 127.
The new referrals made to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) stood at 66 and a further 82, bringing it to 148.
Mothibi said they expected a speedy process to deal with public servants who are in the wrong and that they should be prosecuted, convicted and sentenced.
The SIU was co-operating with the Hawks to ensure all further investigations required by NPA were done.
“We would really urge state institutions to move with speed to institute disciplinary action,” he said.
Mothibi said the corruption-busting body stated that they were in a process of ensuring political and administrative heads of departments, where irregularities were found, were held to account.
There were 196 cases of blacklisting companies.
Mothibi said they would continue to follow up on the cases to ensure sanctions were meted.
He also said the SIU identified entities that have committed irregularities and that should face administrative justice processes, a responsibility to be implemented by heads of departments.
“They have to embark on the process often advised by the National Treasury, but we provide the evidence.”
However, Mothibi said blacklisting should not take long if the entities kicked off the process within a month.
“We need to find the reasons why these matters are delayed,” he said.
Committee chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the committee’s administrative personnel would draft correspondence and dispatch it to affected departments and municipalities to provide progress reports and explanation of the disciplinary processes involving the implicated 127 civil servants.
Hlengwa also said they would have 14 days to respond “so that we can deal with the issue openly and exert the necessary pressure”.
Mothibi said they would be grateful if Scopa ensured that consequence management happened.
“We have said in our observation that rampant corruption has resulted in a culture of impunity that ‘nothing will happen to me’. That culture really has to end by taking action on all fronts.”
He also said those found to be on the wrong side of the law should be acted upon after which a fair process and sanction be made to punish those and remove them from the service.
Political Bureau