THE national prosecuting authority has appointed external auditors to investigate at least R560 million in irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure

When the NPA released its annual financial statements last month, it admitted that the money had been spent irregularly.

But auditor-general Terence Nombembe found that they might have understated this amount by a whopping R108 million.

Prominent law firm Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs has three months to investigate the irregular spending, while Lexis Nexis Forensics started work two weeks ago investigating the wasteful spending, NPA chief operating officer Khotso de Wee told Parliament's justice committee yesterday.

But ANC MP John Jeffreys complained that the NPA was passing on its problems to consultants.

Justice department director-general Nonkululeko Msomi admitted that the NPA "could have done better" in last year's audit.

ANC MP Luwellyn Landers rapped the NPA over the knuckles after De Wee said that 18 NPA staff members had refused to disclose their financial interests.

• National director of public prosecutions Menzi Simelane said despite the negative audit report, the NPA's performance had improved.

Last year there were 12 percent more cases finalised than in the year before.

The number of cases that were withdrawn last year dropped by 15 percent.

But he conceded that there were large numbers of people who did not show up for court and were walking around with warrants of arrest out against them.

More than 68,000 cases were finalised through "alternative dispute resolution mechanisms", like mediation between victims and alleged perpetrators.

Jeffreys said he was "worried" about this. Prejudiced prosecutors could use mediation to get rape survivors to drop charges against alleged rapists, unless the NPA controlled mediation, he said.

Deputy director of public prosecutions Karin Vorster said a policy was being drafted to control how mediation was used.

DA MP Debbie Schafer then accused Simelane of reducing the number of sexual offences courts.

Eight sexual offences courts were shut down and only three new Thuthuzela sexual offences centres were set up. The conviction rate in these was only 64percent.

But Simelane asked: "What is a high conviction rate? If 66 percent is viewed as not being high enough let's agree on 70 percent. Even though there was a 2 percent drop, this is a high conviction rate."

Meanwhile, the serious and commercial crimes unit finalised 58 percent of its cases last year and 30 percent fewer of these cases were enrolled for trial. Convictions were also down by 27 percent.

Simelane said this was because these were complex cases and it was not unusual for them to be in the courts for several years.