Hawks boss takes battering for lack of knowledge
Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza was found wanting as he fumbled his responses to members of Scopa at Parliament yesterday.
|||Parliament - Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza, the man steering a controversial investigation into Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, faced a trial by fire in Parliament on Wednesday when he fumbled his responses to members of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).
As co-chairperson, with prosecutions boss Shaun Abrahams, of the government’s high-level anti-corruption task team, Ntlemeza came in for a mauling in a meeting with Scopa on Wednesday.
It emerged that efforts to fight corruption were poorly co-ordinated and targets set for the team too low relative to the problem.
Ntlemeza appeared out of his depth when asked for specifics on the task team’s work. He required notes from colleagues before he could list all the government agencies involved and initially confirmed there were no cases pertaining to state-owned entities, before being corrected by a subordinate.
Deputy National Director for Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba became so frustrated with Ntlemeza’s answers that she asked for an adjournment so representatives of the team could determine who should answer which questions. It was important, she said, that the information provided should be correct.
The meeting got off to a shaky start when Ntlemeza said he would know who was missing once everyone had introduced themselves.
When that resulted in MPs asking which government agencies participated in the team, Ntlemeza required notes to be passed to him before he could list them.
He responded to a question on why there were no cases relating to state-owned entities listed in the report provided to the committee by saying that might be because the people in charge of the parastatals had not reported any matters to the task team.
At that point, Jiba asked for an adjournment.
When the meeting resumed, head of the Commercial Crime Unit Major-General Alfred Khana said the team was dealing with cases that had been reported in the media relating to Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Eskom and weapons manufacturer Denel, but had understood the meeting to be about corruption in government departments.
He was corrected by Scopa chairperson Themba Godi, who reminded him that the letter requesting the meeting had specified it would deal with government departments and entities.
“What you are giving us is only a quarter or half the picture,” Godi said.
Khana then agreed to provide a list of cases relating to parastatals with details of progress and the sums involved.
MPs complained that the task team had tackled cases to the value of just R10 billion since its inception in 2010, while the quantum of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure identified by the Auditor-General every year was about R25bn, amounting to R150bn over the six years of the team’s existence.
They were shocked to learn there were few convictions under the Public Finance Management Act and its local government equivalent, which stipulate that the accounting officer is to be held responsible for preventing fraud and corruption. This suggested only the lower-level offenders were being prosecuted.
“Are we convicting the clerk and leaving the accounting officer?” asked ANC MP Vincent Smith.
He requested that in future the task team furnish the committee with the details of all the cases so they could be prevented from doing business with the state again.
Godi said there would be no hiding place for those looting the state.
The anti-corruption task team, comprising the Hawks, the National Prosecuting Authority, the State Security Agency, the Financial Intelligence Centre and other government departments, was set up to nail corrupt officials.
Ntlemeza said corruption in certain departments and municipalities was rife.
Graft by province
* Gauteng: Tops the list, with 125 officials involved in corruption cases amounting to R4.7 billion.
* North West: 42 officials were charged for corruption amounting to R1.6bn.
* Limpopo: Corruption and tender fraud rife, with 25 officials charged for R1.3bn corruption.
* Northern Cape, 32 officials probed for corruption and fraud charges amounting to R880m.
* Free State: 78 officials facing charges of corruption amounting to R873m.
* KwaZulu-Natal: 31 public servants involved in corruption amounting to R741m.
* Western Cape: 39 officials are involved in corruption and tender fraud amounting to R200m.
* Mpumalanga: 14 officials involved in corruption amounting to R154m.
* Eastern Cape: 76 officials probed for corruption amounting to R143m. - Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
Political Bureau