The CFO of the Department of Correctional Services, Nick Ligege, is being investigated by the SIU for allegedly awarding PPE tenders worth more than R50m to 23 companies linked ‘to (his) friends and family members’.

This, notes TimesLIVE, was revealed in Parliament yesterday by SIU head Advocate Andy Mothibi and his team at a meeting with the legislature's Scopa, during which they also argued that laws applying to politically-connected people doing business with the state needed to be reviewed.

Mothibi and his team told MPs that they had received the allegations against Ligege in August and immediately began the investigation.

The SIU, along with other law enforcement agencies such as the Hawks, the NPA and the Financial Intelligence Centre, were briefing Scopa on the progress they were making in the battle against Covid-19 corruption.

Mothibi also told MPs that the SIU had approached the Special Tribunal to declare the R139m PPE contract between Ledla, Royal Bhaca and the Gauteng Health Department invalid.

The matter relates to the awarding of a PPE contract to companies owned by Thandisizwe Diko, who is married to suspended presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko, by the Department of Health at a time when it was under the leadership of former MEC Bandile Masuku.

The Dikos and the Masukus are family friends and Masuku has since been fired after the SIU made several findings against him. Mothibi said the FIC has frozen 39 bank accounts linked to Ledla and Royal Bhaca.

The SIU was aiming ‘to freeze approximately R26m as the proceeds of unlawful activities’ held in the accounts of Ledla and Royal Bhaca.

Mothibi said in total, they were probing 930 cases related to PPE corruption across the country.

The documents the SIU tabled at the Scopa meeting showed that of the R15.6bn that government spent on Covid-19 between April and August, R10.5bn was the subject of its investigations, largely related to PPE irregularities.

Full TimesLIVE report