Cape Town – An ongoing Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe has uncovered that about R340 million in duplicate Road Accident Fund (RAF) payments were made to 102 law firms.
The SIU’s investigation into the multimillion-rand payouts also included sheriffs of the court.
About R18m has been recovered to date.
This emerged in Parliament on Wednesday, where the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) was briefed about preliminary findings.
SIU spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, said several legal practitioners have been approached with evidence, and they have opted to co-operate with the investigation in defrayal by signing acknowledgements of debt (AoD).
“To date, the SIU has signed the AoDs to the value of R68m.
“The signing of AoDs does not absolve the legal practitioners from any civil litigation that the SIU may institute or refer for criminal prosecution or being reported to a regulatory body, in this case, the Legal Practice Counsel,” he said.
According to Kganyago, there was one referral made to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for evidence pointing to criminal conduct.
Ten other possible NPA referrals were identified, as well as five possible referrals to the Legal Practice Council.
“Furthermore, the SIU is investigating 10 contracts for possible irregularities, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Some of the contracts were flagged by the auditor-general.
“Four contracts to the value of approximately R837m have been identified for review and possible cancellation,” he added.
The SIU is authorised to investigate allegations of corruption and maladministration in the affairs of RAF, and to recover any financial losses suffered by the state.
Cape Times