Standing committee on public accounts scopa
DA wants Scopa to summon new SAA CEO Thomas Kgokolo
Thomas Kgokolo was appointed to the position on Wednesday night but the official opposition is not happy about the appointment.
The committee had been requested to suspend its probe because the state-owned power utility was conducting its own internal investigation into the matter.
Rescue practitioner, Siviwe Dongwana, said that the restructuring was moving ahead smoothly.
The forensic report is being compiled by PWC, the same accounting firm that was appointed by Steinhoff’s new board to find out what went wrong at the company.
The deputy president said they wanted to get to the bottom of all corruption claims at Eskom, but would not focus on race.
Scopa member Sakhumzi Somyo has also questioned Denel on how much it made from Yemen arms sales.
While the minister said that the state entity was starting to reposition itself, it still had a dark cloud hanging over it as it dealt with the consequences of dodgy tenders in the past.
The investigation will also include procurement and contract management in general.
The Scopa hearing follows two years in which Prasa got two consecutive disclaimers from the Auditor-General. The rail agency is also the government entity with the highest irregular expenditure at over R1 billion rand.
Eskom, Transnet, the SABC all got qualified audit opinions. Even worse, disclaimers were issued for Denel and Prasa.
Scopa said the distribution of the vaccine was a turning point in the fight against COVID-19 and the country could not afford the recurrence of maladministration and fraud in the tender process.
The anti-corruption task team said that it was making major inroads in the fight against corruption.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said that SAA still had a role to play in the country’s economy and allocating it R10.5 billion was a better option than liquidation.
Scopa slammed the SABC's lack of planning relating to supply chain and contract management.
Hawks head Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya said that the Hawks were dealing with a huge influx of cases, with Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu’s special report on COVID-19 corruption highlighting 80,000 exceptions or illegal payments that needed to be followed up.
Eskom acting head of legal, Bartlett Hewu, said that they had managed to recoup some money from other contracts.
The unit on Wednesday updated the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on its investigations at the power utility, which got underway over two years ago.
The SIU has referred more than 5,500 officials to Eskom to face disciplinary proceedings for, among other things, failing to declare their financial interests, including a number of employees red-flagged after lifestyle audits.