A controversial R225 million IT tender adversely impacted the audit outcomes of the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) during fiscal year 2021/2022.
This is the first time the institution has received a negative audit report.
The tainted contract was pointed to in Parliament this week as the catalyst behind the regression of audit outcomes in the OCJ, as flagged by the Auditor-General of SA.
The OCJ delivered its annual report for 2021/22 to the parliamentary committee on justice and correctional services, when irregularities around the dodgy IT tender and its impact were discussed.
The controversy around the matter emanated from revelations that former OCJ staffers were allegedly conflicted in the manner the tender was awarded to Thomson Reuters.
The tender was for Thomson Reuters’s CaseLines system, a cloud-based digital evidence collection and case management platform that allows for court documents to be filed from multiple repositories and disseminated digitally, primarily to officers of the courts.
The Sunday Times first reported on the irregularities of the contract, saying former chief financial officer Casper Coetzer, spokesperson and chief director of court administration Nathi Mncube and case management director Yvonne van Niekerk assumed new roles as 30% sub-contractors to Thomson Reuters after playing a part in awarding a R225 million CaseLines deal to the company.
Thomson Reuters and the implicated former officials have all denied wrongdoing.
Police elite investigating unit, the Hawks, raided the premises of the three around Pretoria and Kempton Park.
The Hawks said preferred charges against the three would be that of fraud, corruption in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act and the contravention of the Cyber Crime Act.
No arrests have been made as yet, as the investigation continues.
This week, OCJ secretary-general Memme Sejosengwe led a delegation to Parliament to detail the institution’s performance in the period under review.
Sejosengwe, who was accompanied by OCJ head of strategy Itumeleng Malao, highlighted the office’s highs and lows in the year, including how audit outcomes have slumped.
Malao lamented the regression of the office, pointing to the R225 million Thomas Reuters contract as the stimulant of the decline in audit outcomes.
“Chairperson, we regret to inform the committee that for the first time since the inception of this institution, the OCJ has regressed on its audit outcome, and unfortunately, in the 2021/2022 financial year, as you can see, we are yellow, meaning we got an unqualified audit with findings.”
He told the committee that among other factors, supply chain issues within the OCJ “require serious intervention” from management, noting that new controls are already being implemented.
Members of Parliament sought an update on the CaseLines matter, to which Sejosengwe responded: “I will not be presenting a formal report as such, as we do with the annual report with regards to procurement irregularities.
“Not because I am abdicating or avoiding accountability with regards to that. I take full responsibility as the accounting officer, but I would like to make the following comments and assure the committee that in appropriate time, the details of the case will be ventilated.”
However, Sejosengwe told parliamentarians that she internally activated a forensic investigation and the probe is complete, and the findings and recommendations have been shared with the accused for them to respond.
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