Three senior officials at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) are facing criminal investigations by the Hawks after they allegedly paid R2.6-billion to two sister companies without any contract or work done in 12 months.
Some of the payments amounting to over R1-billion were made two days before Christmas last year.
The police investigations were triggered by a written tip-off received from a whistleblower who did not want to be identified for safety reasons.
According to the tip-off, the two companies were supposed to do work, including planning, designing, supplying, constructing, installing, testing, commissioning and maintaining a new and expanded mobile communication system for railways known as the GSM-R
redundancy network.
The GSM-R redundancy network, according to the whistleblower, was to be implemented in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Western Cape.
The whistleblower fingers the agency’s three senior employees, known to Sunday World, “as the kingpins of corruption at Prasa capable of manipulating supply chain management policies and payment processes through various committees”.
The explosive tip-off, seen by Sunday World, was sent to Cedrick Nkabinde, the chief of staff in the office of police minister Senzo Mnchunu, who forwarded it to the Hawks for investigation last week.
Nkabinde confirmed this week that he received the tip-off but declined to comment.
“I forwarded everything to the Hawks for investigation,” he said.
The whistleblower alleges that Prasa made a “fraudulent payment of R1.7-billion and another of R922-million”, totalling R2.6-billion, to a company known to Sunday World.
The tipster also added that Prasa paid another R209-million and an additional R49-million to the entity’s sister company, also known to Sunday World, “without a contract”.
The two sister companies whose names are revealed in the tip-off cannot be identified at this stage for legal reasons.
“All these payments were made to companies belonging to (name withheld) without valid appointment letters,” the whistleblower stated.
“The clear message of all these transactions depicts a picture of a captured institution with a derailed procurement policy process led by the three executive members with the aim of leading Prasa into a state of collapse, dysfunction, or redundancy for their own selfish reasons,” the whistleblower explained.
The whistleblower accuses one of the investigated officials of allegedly compromising the procurement system where “an invalid vendor has been created, loaded, and approved for payment by Prasa”.
The tip-off adds that “various” joint venture names were used to “camouflage” the fact that the deals were awarded to one company.
The tip-off states that several “fraudulent payments” of between R200-million and R500-million were made to the sister companies between December 14 and December 24 last year.
The whistleblower adds that “all these payments have no reference of service as no work was done by either of the sister companies.
It also states that “no completion certificate or proof of performance” was attached to support the payment.
The tipster states further that one of the joint venture partners of the two entities “was registered hours before the closing date and did not have a valid Sars certificate or South African bank account on the closing date of the tender submission”.
The whistleblower asks the law enforcement agencies to investigate “a corruption relationship of the Prasa officials and the owner of the two sister companies”.
The whistleblower also encourages the law enforcement agencies to “freeze” the account of one of the sister companies and “conduct a forensic” investigation because it “has fraudulently received payments with no supporting documents”. Prasa spokesperson,
Andiswa Makanda, yesterday said the agency board is taking the whistleblower’s report seriously and will appoint an independent panel to probe the matter.
“The Prasa board takes whistleblower’s allegations seriously and accordingly, in line with our whistleblower policy, the first step will be to appoint an independent investigation into the allegations.
“Prasa supports the rights of whistleblowers and ensures adherence to transparency in the organisation.
“Prasa continues to deliver on its mandate to ensure safe, efficient and reliable commuter transportation whilst upholding a high standard of fairness and integrity,” she said.
