SAFA lay complaint against Hawks for ‘unlawful’ raid
THE South African Football Association (Safa) have lodged a letter of complaint with the oversight judge of the Hawks for what they termed illegal and unlawful raid by the investigative unit on their headquarters.
The Safa headquarters were raided by the Hawks last month in connection with allegations of fraud and theft amounting to R1.3m linked to the association’s president Danny Jordaan.
They seized a laptop, external hard drives, a USB and other documents during the raid. They returned the items few days later.
Safa chief financial officer, Gronie Hluyo says the association is not happy with the way the raid was conducted and have taken the matter for review, and to be set aside.
“The Hawks raided Safa offices on March 8, and they took certain items. But they returned those items on March 11. … We launched a complaint with the judge within the Hawks. This in terms of the steps we have taken on March 15,” says Hluyo as quoted by the Sunday World.
“The Hawks have a platform where we can lodge complaints. We complained because, in our view, the raid was unlawful. And the manner in which it was conducted, we consider it as unfair. So, we received a reference for our complaint, and we are waiting for further action from the judge. On April 4, we lodged an application in the High Court to have that warrant set aside. We can’t give more information because the matter is sub-judice. Those are the steps we have taken so far,” Hluyo added.
Meanwhile, Safa expressed joy at the outcome of the 32nd Ordinary Congress held at the Birchwood Hotel & Conference Centre in Johannesburg on Saturday.
“We are very happy with the progress that SAFA has made. The structure of South African football is in place,” said Safa president Danny Jordaan. Jordaan also revealed that Safa had an unqualified audited financial statement for the financial year under review.
“Safa CFO Gronie Hluyo and the chairman of the finance committee, Mxolisi Sibam, submitted the report and it was accepted by the Congress. This is the 32nd Congress of Safa and for 32 years Safa has delivered audited financial statements to each Congress every year. “We have not skipped one year where we didn’t have an audited financial statement, and were unqualified. So that is just our record on finances. So, there are no issues, no problems.”