State institutions owe SIU close to R1bn for its investigations: Mothibi

Government institutions owe the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) almost R1bn for its investigations.

The entity derives 40% of its revenue from investigations it conducts.

“Our work depends on getting these monies paid to us to sustain our operations,” SIU head Andy Mothibi told parliament's justice portfolio committee on Wednesday.

Mothibi said the unit was owed R986m.

Among those who owe the SIU is the department of justice, under which the SIU falls administratively. It owes R71m.

Mothibi said he has engaged the department and a process is under way to ensure payments are made.

He said justice minister Ronald Lamola was also helping in “encouraging his colleagues” in government to make sure the overall debt is paid.

“I have had discussions with the minister, and we’ve agreed that we conduct a focused escalation process to the accounting officers and possibly to the executive officers individually,” said Mothibi.

“So we’ve got a project which has kicked off and among others would be able to identify all of those on the debtors' list and then we re-engage them along the lines of what we have delivered, the progress reports that we have submitted to them indicating what we have delivered and what is outstanding from them,” he said.

He said the debtors will be given timelines and if they are not adhered to, the matter will be escalated to the executive authorities which are ministers or MECs, failing which the minister (Lamola) has undertaken to table the matter in the cabinet.

Mothibi said the SIU had approached the National Treasury about its funding model and the response was that the model cannot be changed, “but we must focus on (getting) state institutions to pay us”.

He said there were instances where municipalities had said they did not have money to pay the SIU because they didn’t budget for an SIU investigation, but “you find instances where private forensic companies are appointed and they do find budget for that”.

Director-general for the department of justice Doctor Mashabane said his department had paid “a lot of money” to the SIU in December towards clearing its debt. He explained this related to investigations in the Master’s Office and State Attorney which have been ongoing for more than two years.

The R71m will be settled by the end of the financial year, he said.

Mashabane said his department was working with the SIU to recover the unpaid fees from other state institutions.

“We flagged departments that were topping the chart of departments that were not paying. We commit to work with the SIU to assist with the other DGs,” he said.

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