THE Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) says it is investigating a R225 million tender awarded to multinational media and technology company Thomson Reuters.
This after weekend media reports revealed that three former employees of the OCJ, who were privy to the set-up of the tender, recently resigned from the OCJ in order to allegedly illegally benefit from the tender.
The Sunday Times reported that former CFO Casper Coetzer, former spokesperson and chief director of court administration Nathi Mncube, and former case management director Yvonne van Niekerk, helped to set up the six-year contract before they resigned and worked their last day on 31 May.
On 1 June, they started in their new positions as directors of ZA Square Consulting, acting as local partners to Thomson Reuters.
It was later discovered that they own 30% of shares in ZA Square, a firm that was set to gain around R67.5 million from the contract they helped to set up.
“As stated to the Sunday Times, the OCJ is currently in the process of gathering all relevant information relating to the matter and is taking legal advice. At the appropriate time, the OCJ will inform the public on the matter. We can assure the public that the State funds relating to this matter are safe.
“In view of this, the OCJ will not at this stage be making further comments or providing any additional information in this regard,” the OCJ said in a statement.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for the alleged corruption in the issuing of IT tenders by the three officials to be investigated as soon as possible.
“The Chief Justice’s Office should be beyond reproach at all times and serve as a model of clean, corruption-free administration. It is deeply troubling that the OCJ’s reputation and credibility is being jeopardised, especially on the eve of the release of the final Zondo report on Wednesday, June 15,” said Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach, DA Shadow Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development.
“The DA calls on the OCJ to speedily investigate this deal, establish if any procurement procedures were flouted and why, and if so, hold all individuals who engaged in corrupt practises to account.”
Meanwhile, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has moved to clear the air on media reports that the unit has issued an apology to former National Department of Health (NDOH) Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, regarding the Digital Vibes COVID-19 communications tender scandal.
Reports suggested that the corruption busting unit had issued the apology for allegedly failing to transcribe key interviews with witnesses, which led to adverse findings against the former minister.
SIU spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, said the article had the potential to “mislead the public” about the current ongoing litigation in the case.
“The review process is ongoing and the parties are responding to each other’s requests in the process. One of the requests to the SIU was to transcribe the recordings obtained during the investigations. The SIU legal team is attending to this request as a matter of urgency to ensure that the outsourced transcribing service delivers timely.
“The ‘apology for the inconvenience caused’ relates to the process issue and not to ‘Digital Vibes’, as it appears in the article. The SIU will ensure that there is fairness to all parties, as we all prepare for the review. The SIU will at no stage seek to delay the matter,” Kganyago said.
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