Scopa chairperson says it wants to get to the bottom of ‘very serious allegations that were made on the record in Parliament.’
Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) is to investigate allegations that the judiciary is possibly corrupt in the way it deals with Road Accident Fund (RAF) claims and is colluding with lawyers.
Scopa chairperson Songezo Zibi confirmed this on Friday, during a meeting of the committee about the full inquiry it has launched into allegations of maladministration, financial mismanagement, wasteful and reckless expenditure, and related financial misconduct at the RAF.
He said Scopa has asked the RAF for any copies of letters that were sent either to the Chief Justice or the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) about instances of corruption. “We have asked for specific cases where that is suspected to have occurred,” said Zibi.
“We are looking into allegations on both sides of the issue. We have asked the RAF for information that they have sent to the relevant authorities, and we are asking those authorities for similar information so we can get a complete picture.
“We have asked [the RAF] whether any complaints have been lodged against any specific judges and if that information can be provided to us. We are still awaiting their response,” he added.
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Zibi said Scopa also wanted “to get to the bottom” of alleged collusion between judges and lawyers and has asked the RAF to quantify the financial losses that have come about as a result of that alleged collusion.
“I want to assure the [Scopa] members that that is not something that we are glossing over. Those were very serious allegations that were made on the record in Parliament, and we want to get to the bottom of that as well,” he said.
Zibi added that, as part of the investigation into RAF claims, Scopa “will be probing the lawyers themselves.”
“If we need to call anyone with the RAF having shown that is where they [lawyers] have ripped them off, of course then we need to get the LPC [Legal Practice Council] and the people to account to Parliament as to why they are ripping the RAF off,” he said.
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Zibi added that information has emerged about double payments by the RAF, which falls within the terms of reference of Scopa’s inquiry as it involves financial loss to the RAF and taxpayers.
He said it has become clear that double payments do not only apply to lawyers but also to medical experts, but the amount of money involved at the moment is unknown.
“But there are hundreds of medical experts who are either unpaid because their payments have gone mistakenly to other people, they have gone to attorneys instead of medical experts, and sometimes they have gone to attorneys who have got nothing to do with a particular medical expert.
“The extent of the problem in respect of the payment system at the RAF is far wider than we thought at the time [the inquiry was launched],” he said.
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Personal protection
Zibi also revealed during the meeting that he has increased his personal security after he received a report recommending he do so. This was based on a threat assessment commissioned by the National Commissioner of the SA Police Services (SAPS) that revealed he was being followed and photographs were being taken of him together with the people he met.
He recounted an incident where he met a person who gave him a file about the overpayments to medical experts employed by the RAF to support the fund’s own cases against the lawyers of claimants.
Zibi said he met the deputy minister of finance at the same venue after that meeting, and was subsequently informed that the National Police Commissioner had commissioned a threat assessment on him and determined that he needed to improve his personal security.
“There were people who were observing my previous meeting on the Tuesday, and were now observing my meeting with the deputy finance minister and taking photographs of us.
“I don’t know what the intention was. Perhaps it was to see who I was talking to, and it’s possible that the person who gave me the information on the Tuesday was photographed as well.
“I do know which car has been following me and who it belongs to. That information has been passed onto the police,” he said.
Zibi stressed that the protection of whistleblowers is a big issue, and he believes Parliament has a particular responsibility to make sure they are protected.
“There are people who feel extremely afraid. These are people who are former employees of the RAF.
“People are feeling afraid because of what happens to auditors and other whistleblowers in the country, which I think is a reasonable fear,” he said.
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This is believed to be a reference to the assassination of a number of high-profile people in recent years, including Babita Deokaran when she was about to expose alleged corruption at the Tembisa Hospital and Gauteng health department – as well as several prosecutors, prominent liquidator Cloete Murray and his son Thomas, and more recently, insolvency attorney Bouwer van Niekerk.
Parliamentary legal advisor Fatima Ebrahim said the protection of whistleblowers is of serious concern.
But, Ebrahim admitted that Parliament does not have the resources or any legal framework to provide whistleblowers with any form of protection.
“We have to urge such people to come forward; [but] we cannot force them to do so,” she said.
Zibi added that Scopa needs to treat the submissions of whistleblowers with the necessary care and not expose them to further feelings of being unsafe “otherwise people will simply not assist Parliament.”
He said one of the whistleblowers, a critical person with first-hand knowledge of the issues the Scopa inquiry will be investigating, told Ebrahim that they now did not leave their house unnecessarily.
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.
