SIU probes pick up under Ramaphosa

Since taking office in 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa has been responsible for 42% (104) of all the 245 presidential proclamations issued to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) since 2001.

When he took office, one of Ramaphosa’s priorities was to tackle the corruption that had become endemic in government and state entities during the years of state capture, and the acceleration in the number of SIU investigations during his tenure attests to this.

The SIU investigates serious malpractices or maladministration relating to state institutions, state assets and public money and does so under a presidential proclamation. It submits its reports with recommendations to the presidency, which issues them to affected organs of state and monitors the implementation of their recommendations.

Ramaphosa established the Special Tribunal in November 2019 to fast-track recoveries of misappropriated public funds by the SIU, which previously relied on applications to the high court. According to a briefing given to parliament’s standing committee on public accounts by officials from the department of planning, monitoring & evaluation, the tribunal has “significantly increased the ability of the state to recover misappropriated public funds”.

Over the past decade the SIU has recovered R3.35bn, excluding the value of contracts set aside. The highest amount of civil recoveries (R2bn) arose from the investigation into malpractices at Eskom and Transnet.

Matsietsi Mekoa, deputy director-general for corporate services in the department of planning, monitoring & evaluation in the presidency, and Jonathan Timm, director of citizen-based monitoring in the department, gave an update on Tuesday to parliament’s standing committee on public accounts on the processing of investigation reports submitted to the presidency by the SIU.

According to the briefing, national departments and public entities account for 86 of the 245 SIU proclamations, with KwaZulu-Natal and its municipalities being the focus of the greatest number of investigations (34) since 2001.

There are 10 active probes in Gauteng, eight in KwaZuluNatal, six in Eastern Cape, one in Free State, eight in Limpopo, two in Mpumalanga, one in Northern Cape, three in the North West and four in Western Cape.

Timm said there were 74 active investigations that had not reached the stage where the presidency had issued recommendations; 22 investigations had been closed; 26 where there was active monitoring of the implementation of the recommendations; and 25 where there was an inadequate response to the recommendations and where further action was awaited. The presidency is investigating the status of the implementation of the recommendations of the 98 cases completed before 2019.

The SIU made 385 disciplinary recommendations, which the presidency is monitoring. KwaZulu-Natal accounts for the largest number at 106, followed by national departments (91), Mpumalanga (43), Eastern Cape (39) and Gauteng (33).

Of the 134 finalised cases, 67 were found guilty, 15 not guilty, 24 resigned, contracts expired in six cases, three died and a decision was taken not to charge in 19 cases.

Of those found guilty, 13 were dismissed, one was demoted, six were suspended without pay, 18 received a final written warning, one was given counselling and information is awaited in 14 cases.

The SIU referred 304 recommendations for criminal prosecution to the National Prosecuting Authority in relation to the Covid-19 procurement investigation and 70 guilty convictions have been handed down since June 2021.

Of the 17 convicted in these cases, three were sentenced to 15 years in prison, with the average sentence being eight years. Twenty-two received a custodial sentence with the option of a fine. Fines paid totalled R2.7m, with the highest being R1m and the average R80,000.

MPs were told that the Covid-19 procurement investigation recommended that 91 directors and 297 companies be restricted from doing business with the state but as of January 2024 none had been referred to the National Treasury database of restricted suppliers.

Eskom and Transnet have restricted suppliers implicated in SIU investigations on their own databases.

Mekoa noted the Public Procurement Bill, which is before the National Council of Provinces, would shorten the process of disbarment by placing the responsibility with the procuring institution to debar delinquent suppliers and to notify the Treasury rather than to recommend to the Treasury.