Now up to president to approve SIU tribunal
THE BALL is in the court of President Cyril Ramaphosa to approve the establishment of the special tribunal that will speed up civil litigation instituted by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
Yesterday, SIU head Andy Mothibi told Parliament that the Justice Department had informed them that the issue of the special tribunal had been referred to Ramaphosa.
This comes months after the SIU reported to the justice and correctional portfolio committee that a process had been set in motion to re-establish the special tribunal working to delay their litigation, among other things.
“We raised it with the Department of Justice that our legislation makes provision for establishment of the special tribunal, and we recommended and proposed we re-establish it.”
Mothibi also said the appointment of the judge president of the special tribunal and judges to serve on it was handled by the department.
“It has now been referred to the president so that he can apply his mind,” he added.
The issue of the special tribunal was raised by MPs after the SIU reported in their 2017-18 annual report that they missed one of nine of their targets on actual value of money and or assets recovered. The SIU aimed to recover R120 million, but recovered only R33m in the financial year.
This was blamed partly on the slow pace of civil litigation.
Mothibi said there was progress to re-establish the special tribunal “that is to enable us to then have a focused approach on litigation”.
“It has now progressed to a stage where if the president is satisfied with the process, we can see the appointment of a special tribunal by the president, and all others will hang on it.”
No comment was obtained from Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, by deadline.
The SIU was allocated R5m for the establishment of the tribunal, to be spent on equipment and human resources.
The unit obtained a clean audit report for the second successive time, but Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu found it incurred R1.5m in irregular expenditure. This was due to two service providers being used without following proper supply chain management and another where no proper deviation in tendering was followed.
While the MPs commended the SIU for the clean audit, they were concerned about the irregular expenditure and failure to meet all its targets.