THE Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is probing millions of rand paid to private lawyers and advocates by the Office of the State Attorney over a number of years.
This emerged in a lawsuit filed by senior counsel, Advocate Viwe Notshe, at the South Gauteng High Court claiming millions of rand from the state attorney’s office. Notshe was among the evidence leaders during the commission of inquiry into state capture chaired by retired Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
The state attorney’s office refused to pay Notshe’s invoices, citing the ongoing SIU probe into several payments.
In Notshe’s case, the state attorney’s office would not pay due to the fact that the SIU had not concluded its investigation and resisted paying due to the SIU having conducted an investigation into the payment of R27 million worth of invoices he previously submitted and that the probe had not been completed.
The invoices Notshe now claimed payment for were not part of the SIU investigation.
In court, the Office of State Attorney argued that until the SIU investigation into the payments previously made was completed it did not know what amount, if any, of the R27m already paid to Notshe would have to be paid back, which the office believed was an intolerable risk.
However, South Gauteng High Court Judge Stuart Wilson found that there was no basis on which to resist a claim for payment based on invoices that are otherwise due and payable.
”If any of the R27m that has already been paid to Notshe subsequently becomes repayable, the State Attorney will have its remedies then,” the judge stated in a ruling handed down last month.
The judge said the state attorney’s office is not entitled to speculate that Notshe might have to pay some of that money back, and on the basis of that speculation, refuse to pay amounts due in terms of invoices that it has accepted and approved, and in respect of which it has no genuine basis to repudiate liability.
Judge Wilson gave the green light for the payment of Notshe’s invoices not subject of the SIU investigation.
”In the circumstances, it seems to me that the wiser course is to grant the claim for payment with interest to run from the date on which the application papers were issued, on January 14, 2021,” read the judgment.
In a separate matter, the SIU also wants former advocate Hassan Ebrahim Kajee to repay about R27m in damages suffered by the state as a result of an allegedly corrupt and collusive relationship with former head of the state attorney’s office in Johannesburg, Gustav Lekabe.
The scheme operated through Lekabe briefing Kajee in a number of matters, but the erstwhile advocate charged for services not rendered, double charged for the same work done in a case and also double invoiced the state attorney’s office in Johannesburg or overreached in his accounts submitted to the office.
In July this year, Kajee was unsuccessful in his challenge of a February 2023 ruling handed down by former Special Tribunal president Judge Lebogang Modiba, who set aside as a regular step his notice of motion and founding affidavit, which he presented as an exception when a party raises an objection to summons or a plea claiming they are vague and embarrassing or do not disclose a cause of action.
Judge Modiba dismissed Kajee’s attempt to review and set aside her judgment, with the SIU stating that the tribunal lacks the jurisdiction to review its own decisions and that the ruling was not appealable.
Kajee was arrested by the Hawks last year on several charges of fraud, and the Johannesburg Regional Court granted him R20 000 bail.
The SIU is also demanding the repayment of R32m from Lekabe in five claims valued between R300 000 and R27m.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za