President Cyril Ramaphosa has authorised South Africa’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to probe the affairs of the embattled South African Airways (SAA), finance ministry and power utility Eskom as he steps up the war on corruption, APA learnt on Wednesday.
Published in a government gazette, Ramaphosa’s order said as allegations continued to be made with respect to the affairs of the SAA, and the SIU has been tasked to prove the procurement of aircraft, legal services, and service providers for the SAA turn-around plan.
The president said the SIU would also investigate maladministration in SAA’s travel rebate benefits for qualifying beneficiaries, payments made to vendors and implementation of procurement policy at the troubled airline dating back to 2002.
The National Treasury’s US$220-million contract for information technology systems would also come under scrutiny in the SIU probe, Ramaphosa said in the notice.
The SIU is also expected to probe serious maladministration within the National Treasury, including improper conduct by its officials, and unlawful appropriation for expenditure of public money.
A forensic investigation found that the National Treasury had flouted its own policies and regulations into the procurement of a US$220-million information technology project called the Integrated Financial Management Information System.
At the power utility Eskom, Ramaphosa wants the SIU to look into procurement of coal, coal transportation services, diesel, cloud computing services, software licence and support services and engineering, and project management consulting services, among others.
SIU head Andy Mothibi said the body welcomed the gazetting of the proclamations, and he would proceed to carry out the assignment.
“We commit to speed up the investigations to ensure that instances of maladministration, malpractice and corruption are reported, investigated, and that those responsible are held to account and make sure the losses suffered by the state institutions are recovered,” Mothibi said.
NM/jn/APA