Action must be taken against SOEs that owe SIU money: Breytenbach

Democratic Alliance MP, Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach, says action must be taken against government departments and state-owned entities which owe the Special Investigating Unit large sums of money.

Briefing the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services on Wednesday, the head of the SIU revealed that over half-a-billion rand in debt is owed, posing a risk to the unit’s financial stability.

Breytenbach says the SIU needs to be paid for the investigations it conducted on government’s behalf.

“The office of the SIU is a semi-government department and so they just ignore them because there really are no consequences for no paying them. In the past the SIU has written off these amounts and now the amount is so staggeringly high that it can’t be ignored. Action must be taken as it is a huge amount and of course it is going to impact on the abilities of the SIU to do very good work on their investigations.”

Government departments, state entities owe SIU half a billion rands

SIU has informed parliament that it is owed half a billion rands by government departments and state entities. The funds are due for the investigations conducted on behalf of the legislature.

SIU head Andy Mothibi has told the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services that these nonpayments threaten the unit’s financial stability. During a presentation, he stated that the current funding model is dependent on payments from these entities and is not sustainable.

SIU currently owed around half a billion rand:

Mothibi says they are engaging all relevant authorities to resolve the issue of non-payment. He says however that he is satisfied that it is being taken seriously and that the Department of Justice is processing the legislative amendments that will include proposed changes to the funding model.

“We are really working hard, we engaged the National Treasury. We’ve engaged our minister and he’s aware of the debt levels. While SIU is in a sound financial position, we are what the auditors will call a going concern. There are no risks related to SIU but if we don’t recover this debt it has got the potential that down the line it will pose a risk to SIU operations,” says Mothibi.