The Hawks hover over several depts, National Lottery

The Hawks are investigating fraud, theft and corruption charges amounting to R2.6bn within the department of water and sanitation.

The amount stems from 16 active cases under investigation at the department.

Presenting their report to the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Wednesday, the Hawks revealed this is one of the many departments they are investigating after the matters were referred to them by the Special Investigating Unit. However, they did not expand on the offences committed, which necessitated investigations in those departments.

Maj-Gen Mmeli Makinyane said all the cases fall under the national priority offences. "The cases, referred by the SIU, fall under the serious corruption investigation component and serious commercial crime component. This slide checklist informs [you] of the number of cases that the DPCI [Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation] is currently handling with SIU referrals. We have 387 cases, of which 67 are pending in court. Two cases were provisionally withdrawn, and 105 cases have been referred to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for a decision," Makinyane said.

Makinyane added that they had obtained 2,883 statements, with charges ranging from fraud and theft, to the contravention of public funds. Some of the departments being investigated include:

• Department of health, which has 21 cases amounting to R1.05bn that are being probed.
• National Treasury, with investigation involving R1bn from just one case.
• Department of public works, which has four cases involving over R200m.
• Department of human settlements, which is being investigated for over R199m stemming from one case.
• National Lottery is also being investigated for seven cases amounting to R198m.

Speaking at the same briefing NPA boss Shamila Batohi said their challenge to successfully prosecute cases was the lack of capacity. “We have lost many of them [investigating officers]. Unless the salary dispensation issue is addressed within the NPA, particularly in the IDAC [Investigating Directorate Against Corruption], it will remain a problem,” she said.

“I think General [Hawks head Godfrey] Lebeya will agree [that] he's facing the same issue. If the government is serious about tackling financial crimes, we must create a dispensation that attracts and retains the right skills.”

She also revealed they had 39 cases from the state capture report.“We have been rebuilding; we have adopted a number of key strategic initiatives in order to stabilise the NPA. We had a serious problem with the capacity and capability to deal with serious complex corruption, which is still a problem, but we are working on that,” Batohi said.

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