R100m disappears from courts

A probe has been set up into about R100m suspected to have been stolen or mismanaged in a number of magistrates courts allegedly by justice department officials, the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) said on Friday. SIU head Willie Hofmeyr said the investigation would cover at least 40 courts and a bulk of these were in the rural parts of Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. "Magistrates, prosecutors and court clerks are among officials that we will be investigating," he told Sapa.

The R100m was part of a R1.5bn held in trust by the State for people to receive child maintenance through the courts and those who pay bail and traffic fines. Hofmeyr said the unit did not suspecting corruption at present because the money could have been maladministered, or in some instances just unaccounted for because of poor financial records. He said the funds could have been spent legitimately, but the SIU wanted records to this effect. He said the SIU instituted the investigation recently after the Department of Justice approached it six months ago about allegations of gross financial irregularities at courts. "We have been communicating with the department in this regard since then and we believe these allegations warrant an investigation. "So far preliminary investigations point to syndicates operating in the major cities, while bad auditing and lack of internal controls in rural areas make it easy for graft and unscrupulous officials to operate."

Hofmeyr said he was assembling a team of 25 specialist investigators, lawyers and forensic auditors. The team is scheduled to start work on September 1. "We want to get under way as soon as possible. The department has also offered us about R6m for the operation," he said. "We will be recruiting from the elite Scorpions detective unit, police and auditing firms. These people will have to resign from their current positions to concentrate fully on this probe." The investigation was expected to take about two years.

Departmental spokesperson Paul Setsetse said the probe followed a proclamation signed by President Thabo Mbeki three weeks ago. The upcoming SIU probe was preceeded by the department's internal investigation into the matter, which took place two year ago. "It took us a year to conclude our investigation because these irregularities started prior 1994 when the State used to allocate budgets to courts without monitoring them." Setsetse said currently, the department was in the process of appointing court managers to looks after funds given to courts. "We are taking responsibility away from our officials like magistrates and court clerks so that people with appropriate skills can take over the managing of these funds," he said.

Source: News 24