Public Interest SA has written to the Public Protector requesting an independent probe to establish whether public procurement prescripts were breached during the procurement of IT services by the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ), reports TimesLIVE.

This comes after it was revealed that three former top officials from the OCJ, who were crucial in arranging a R225m IT tender to multinational media and technology organisation Thomson Reuters, benefited from the deal.

The three were named as former CFO Casper Coetzer, former spokesperson Nathi Mncube and former case management director Yvonne van Niekerk. They are alleged to have started ZA Square, which is subcontracted to Thomson Reuters regarding the same deal.

The OCJ issued a statement on Sunday saying it was gathering all relevant information relating to the matter and seeking legal advice.

However, Public Interest SA said this is not enough.

In a letter addressed to the Public Protector, the organisation said the OCJ had failed to commit to anything.

The organisation also said it was of the view that an independent investigation by the Public Protector would not only help further strengthen trust in public institutions, but also vindicate and safeguard inherent public interests in the matter.

Public Interest SA said it has since established prima facie evidence of transgression of public procurement laws and applicable regulations. It argues that the OCJ did not have lawful justification to embark on a ‘single-source’ procurement process in its procurement of CaseLines – in that requirements for deviation from prescribed procurement processes were never fulfilled.

It said the three implicated senior officials benefited from the procurement in that they were appointed subcontractors to Thomson Reuters – proprietors of the CaseLines platform – in circumstances that raise serious conflict of interest concerns.

Full TimesLIVE report