Corruption hard to prosecute, Hawks tell standing committee

THE Hawks have accused heads of departments, municipal managers and chief executives at state entities of failing to report corruption and provide supporting documents for investigation.

This emerged yesterday when the Hawks briefed the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on the corruption cases the unit is handling.

In a report, Hawks head of commercial crime, Major-General Alfred Khana, said the managers instruct private institutions to conduct audits yet don’t want to be complainants when criminal cases were identified. “Most of the audits do not provide sufficient evidence for criminal investigations, but relate mostly to departmental misconduct which has to be dealt with internally,” he said.

He also told MPs about the absence of original documents as exhibits to corroborate evidence and to prove allegations.

Earlier Khana told the committee that there were 30 corruption cases involving national departments with three cases in court, 26 under investigation and one waiting for a decision of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

There was a total of 368 corruption cases reported in provinces with 121 in court, 155 investigated and 92 waiting a decision of the NPA, he said.

A total of 315 corruption cases were reported in municipalities with 368 in court, 368 under investigation and 78 with the NPA.

A further 78 cases involved state-owned entities with 14 in court, 50 being investigated and 14 awaiting a decision from NPA.

The parliamentarians were unhappy with the lists of cases. Some raised questions about delays in concluding the investigations and matters still to be decided by the NPA. “I would’ve liked much more detailed documents on what is going on with specific matters. You are not telling us what is happening,” the DA’s Tim Brauteseth said.