Cape Town - While the Presidency has since 2001 made 234 proclamations authorising Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigations, there is still a low level of compliance by departments in terms of reporting on disciplinary cases.
The presidency on Tuesday updated the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on the implementation of investigation reports submitted by the SIU to the president.
The SIU has issued a total of 162 reports to the president since 2001. Of these, 37% involve provincial governments, 30% national government, 26% involve municipalities and 7% state-owned entities.
There are currently 67 proclamations categorised as “active”, by the SIU.
Among the 16 proclamations issued for the 2022/23 period, the Saldanha Bay municipality is being investigated over allegations of corruption and maladministration.
Proclamation R95 of 2022, an extension of Proclamation R39 of 2020, which probed the procurement of two contracts, authorised the SIU to further investigate allegations of corruption.
“The extension of the proclamation will see the SIU investigating allegations of serious maladministration in the municipality in respect to a strategic partnership concluded between the municipality and the Saldanha Bay Tourism Office, including the expenditure of public money paid out by the municipality to the Saldanha Bay Tourism Office.
“Appointment of the personal assistant: speaker and council support, mayoral support service, political administrator, strategic adviser and executive mayor: communications officer in the year 2019/2020,” the SIU had earlier explained.
Saldanha Bay Municipality (SBM) said it was not aware of any irregularities.
“The municipality will however fully co-operate with the Special Investigation Unit and will provide all information if and when required.
“Saldanha Bay Municipality takes pride in its clean and transparent administration,” SBM spokesperson Ethne Lawrence said.
In terms of progress on disciplinary referrals by the SIU, the presidency noted, “low level of compliance by departments on updating status of disciplinary cases on the Personal and Salary System (Persal)”.
Analysis of PPE disciplinary cases also found that certain officials who resigned to avoid sanction had not been properly recorded on Persal to state, for example resigned, pending departments or criminal charges.
Other findings included that the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) uses a manual system for tracking disciplinary cases.
As an intervention, a task team has been established involving the DPSA, the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Department of Public Enterprises, National Treasury and the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, together with presidency, to “design and implement a central register for dismissals from organs of state, and to look into the issue of resignations during disciplinary processes”.
For the period 2019 to 2023, the presidency said the NPA had reported that SIU referrals have resulted in 31 convictions and 272 decisions not to prosecute; 74 matters related to SIU referrals are currently in court.
In terms of the SIU’s referrals for administrative actions for 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 (up to Q3), there are 387 referrals that relate to placing suppliers on the National Treasury’s restricted supplier register.
Cape Times