Report on tender graft in Limpopo ‘ready by next week’

CAPE TOWN — A preliminary report by the public protector on a probe into the awarding of tenders by the Limpopo government to OnPoint Engineering — a company linked to expelled former African National Congress ( ANC) Youth League leader Julius Malema — could be released next week, CE of the public protector’s office Themba Mthethwa said yesterday.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela last year said she would be investigating the awarding of the tenders, and subsequently instructed the Limpopo government to suspend contracts awarded to On-Point Engineering, while she investigated the contracts it received.

The probe was, however, delayed due to “resource constraints”.

The preliminary report could add to Mr Malema’s woes, whose affairs are also being probed by the Hawks and the South African Revenue Service. This week the ANC’s national executive committee said it had found no grounds to review the decision to expel the beleaguered former youth league president.

Speaking on the sidelines of a corruption summit, Mr Mthethwa said Ms Madonsela had visited Limpopo this week and could release the preliminary report by next week. “The public protector is working on the case, she was in Limpopo yesterday (Tuesday), so we expect her to issue an interim report very soon, probably next week… we got adequate resources to continue with the probe,” Mr Mthethwa said.

On the issue of corruption in SA, Mr Mthethwa said he was optimistic that the “scourge of corruption could be dealt with”. But it was necessary for the government to introduce a unit dedicated to fighting graft.

“For instance, in Singapore they have a unit on corruption that reports to the president, the person that heads that unit has a performance contract … and it works … they do not do anything else, but fight corruption. Here (in SA) people think the public protector’s office is a corruption-busting unit as well as the Hawks; that is not the case,” Mr Mthethwa said.

Hennie van Vuuren, a director at the Institute for Security Studies, said corruption should be viewed as a “gross human rights violation”.

“Corruption is systemic … it is only when we look at corruption as systemic that we can fight its manifestations,” Mr van Vuuren said.