By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed three proclamations for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to look into allegations of corruption and maladministration.
The SIU will probe the affairs of the Road Accident Fund (RAF), Overstrand Local Municipality in the Western Cape and mining company Alexkor.
Investigations into the embattled RAF will include the payments made by the agency to claimants or their agents.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago says the investigation will also focus on payments made by RAF to service providers between April 2018 and December 2021.
“The SIU is also authorized to investigate any irregular, improper or unlawful conduct by officials or employees of RAF or any person or entity in relation to the allegations being investigated,” says Kganyago.
The Overstrand investigation will focus on maladministration linked to the approval, allocation or payment of housing subsidies and allocation of houses.
At Alexkor, the SIU will focus on maladministration linked to marketing, valuation, the sale and beneficiation of diamonds, as well as agreements concluded between the mining giant and service providers.
Alexkor SOC is a partner in the financially strained Pooling and Sharing Joint Venture (PSJV) – diamond mine – alongside the Richtersveld Mining Company (RMC) in the Northern Cape.
In early 2021,reports surfaced that the PSJV had forcibly laid off 56 mineworkers, whilst eight opted for voluntary severance packages and cut their losses with the highly indebted mine. This was in addition to the 190 workers retrenched in 2019, some of whom were at that stage yet to receive their retrenchment packages. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was in the process of challenging the retrenchments in court arguing that the PSJV joint board was improperly constituted, nullifying the retrenchments.
The former Company Secretary of PSJV, Raygen Phillips, stepped down from her role on 24 August 2020, she maintained in her resignation letter that the mine joint board was not properly constituted therefore rendering all decisions made by the board – including the retrenchments – unlawful. The mine joint board is supposed to be made up of three members of the Richtersveld Mining Company (RMC) and three non-executive directors of Alexkor. She revealed in the resignation letter, that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alexkor, Lemogang Pitsoe, had been appointed as the interim PSJV CEO in early 2020 and went further to appoint himself as Chairperson of the joint board. The latter appointment can only be made by Minister Pravin Gordhan, said Phillips.
However, the constitution of the joint board has been under question for much longer.
According to Phillips, the placement of Lloyd McPatie – who was the then administrator of Alexkor SOC – as the chairperson of the joint venture’s board by Gordhan in September 2019, was also an unequivocal contravention of the aforementioned deed of settlement and the unanimous resolution between the community and the government. These two documents will come under the radar during the visit.
In 2003, the Supreme Court of Appeal delivered a landmark judgment that restored the Richtersveld Community’s right to the mineral resources of the land and ordered that Alexkor must compensate the people for damage done. In 2011, a pooling and sharing joint venture (PSJV) between the community and the mine was formed.
“The proclamations authorise the SIU to use all its legislative powers to subpoena bank statements and cellphone records, search and seize evidence, and interrogate witnesses under oath in an effort to hold those responsible to account for their actions.
“Evidence pointing to criminal conduct will be referred to the National Prosecuting Authority, as well as the Hawks,” Kganyago added.