/ 24 January 2001

State loses millions by icing Heath

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday

THE state and the taxpayer last year lost at least R390m because government is preventing the Judge Willem Heaths Special Investigative Unit from investigating cases of corruption, says the unit’s annual report.

According to a report in Afrikaans daily Beeld, the figure of R390m for the financial year ending last March was derived from 26 requests to investigate cases of alleged corruption – and a further value could not be placed on an additional 33 cases of potential corruption.

The SIU may only investigate a case once President Thabo Mbeki had issued an official proclamation – and practically no proclamations had been issued since the 1999 election, leaving the unit powerless.

The most serious problem lay with the Department of Justice, which refused to prepare these proclamations for submission to Mbeki, said Beeld. Serious budget shortages further hampered the unit’s task.

In 1999/2000 only 15 proclamations were issued to empower the unit to conduct investigations. This figure was substantially lower than the 53 issued during the previous year.

Between 1 April 1999 and 31 March 2000, the unit had sent 83 motivations for investigation to the justice department, but not a single one was completed, bringing the number of outstanding cases to 127, said Beeld.

In spite of this, the SIU had still managed to prevent losses of R168m in potential corruption, including cash recoveries of R112m. In the previous year, the unit prevented or reclaimed losses of R1.3 billion.

Heath, who has recently clashed with Justice Minister Penuell Maduna and Mbeki over his leadership of the SIU after a Constitutional Court decision that it was inappropriate for a judge to head such a unit, quoted a statement by Maduna praising the appointment of a judge to the position.

Before the latest developments, Maduna had told a meeting of legal experts that “as a policy matter, the unit must be led by a person whose integrity is above board. This is especially important if the nature and extent of the unit’s tasks are taken into account.

“For this reason it is desirable that a High Court judge or acting judge preside over this task. It is expected that a judge or acting judge will not only have the integrity, but also the necessary experience and know-how to handle the functions, Beeld quoted him as saying.