Africa-Press – South-Africa. Parliament’s finance watchdog wants to see a meeting between the higher education department and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) in 14 days to iron out a matter of R5 billion potential corruption.
On Thursday, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) was briefed on the independent forensic investigation into the National Skills Fund (NSF) commissioned at the behest of the committee following disclaimed audit outcomes.
“The audit outcomes were unacceptable to Scopa and a forensic investigation, which came out in March 2022, was carried out by Nexus.
“The committee has been trying unsuccessfully to access the report for a while. It received a letter from the minister of Higher Education and Training asking the committee to invoke Rule 189 of the National Assembly Rules requesting the report to be treated as confidential,” Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said.
According to Hlengwa, the initial reaction of the committee was to disagree with that request.
“Subsequently, however, the committee subjected its disagreement with that request to Parliament’s legal services with the intention to get a concrete interpretation, and how to apply Rule 198 of the NA Rules. The legal opinion from Parliament’s legal services confirmed Scopa’s position on the matter.
“Based on that confirmation, the chairperson of Scopa informed the minister of the Department of Higher Education and Training that Scopa has not acceded to its request to treat the report as confidential,” he said.
Hlengwa said Scopa wanted to see a meeting between the department and the SIU within the next 14 days.
“Scopa will monitor the process by requesting quarterly reports from all the involved parties to ensure that work is being done,” he said.
Furthermore, Hlengwa said the committee noted certain limitations experienced by Nexus when it conducted the forensic investigation.
“This is why the committee welcomes the commitment from the deputy minister of Higher Education and Training on fostering a working relationship between the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Special Investigating Unit on this matter,” he said.
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande appointed a forensic company to conduct a full-scale investigation into the financial affairs of the NSF after an amount of just under R5 billion could not be properly accounted for over two financial years.
Nzimande made this announcement in May when he delivered his budget vote speech for the 2022/23 financial year, but the Auditor-General first picked up the irregularities.
Hlengwa said the committee noted three areas emanating from the NSF process as it deals with the outcomes of the forensic report.
“The first area is the disciplinary hearings that are taking place within the NSF, the second area is the Hawks-led criminal investigations which are under way. The third aspect which must now take place is the SIU-led process on the civil litigations,” he said.
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