Did Balfour lie about Mti?

2007-04-25 11:18

Adriaan Basson and Carien du Plessis

Johannesburg - Did Ngconde Balfour and his deputy mislead the country about investigations into Linda Mti, the former national prisons commissioner?

This question was being asked after the Public Service Commission(PSC) and the special investigating unit (SIU) indicated that they had not yet decided about Mti's guilt.

In contrast, Balfour, minister of correctional services, issued a statement on March 2, saying Mti was "cleared" by both these bodies.

Loretta Jacobus, Balfour's deputy, in February told Parliament during an information session: "Nothing in the PSC report implicated the commissioner."

Tenders worth billions

The investigations followed after Beeld and Die Burger revealed the relationship between Mti and the Bosasa group of companies.

Companies in the Bosasa group received tenders worth R1.87bn from the department of correctional services over two years.

Mti resigned in November last year - eight months before his contract with the DCS would have expired.

He was then appointed as security chief for the local organising committee for the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament.

The PSC was investigating a possible conflict of interest and the SIU was looking at the process followed during the allocation of the Bosasa tenders.

The March 2 statement read: "He (Balfour) further also announced that the investigation by the Public Service Commission and the Special Investigation Unit on the alleged tender irregularities related to the Sondolo IT tender for the installation of the bio-metric security system in correctional centres, has respectively cleared the former commissioner, Linda Mti of any conflict of interest, unethical or criminal conduct."

Sondolo IT, a company in the Bosasa group, was allocated the R237m contract to install access control systems at 66 prisons countrywide.

According to Humphrey Ramafoko, a spokesperson for the PSC, they had given Balfour only a preliminary report, as further investigation was required by the SIU.

The PSC was waiting for a final answer from the SIU before a final report would be compiled for Balfour's attention.

"The PSC has not made any findings relating to Mr Mti at this stage," Ramafoko said.

According to Faiek Davids, deputy chief of the SIU, they had "at no stage launched any formal or informal investigation" into Mti.

"The SIU did however look at certain DCS tenders to determine if the process and awarding (of tenders) were regular. We are still busy with this process.p> "But at this stage there are no allegations of specific criminal or unethical behaviour that we investigate against any specific person, official of company."

At the end of last year, Beeld and Die Burger revealed that Bosasa had written large parts of the tender document for the access control system, even before the tender was officiallly advertised.

Luphumzo Kebeni, Balfour's spokesperson, failed to react to Beeld's enquiries after initially saying these were "easy questions".

- Beeld