SIU wants parolee electronic monitoring contract cancelled

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) confirmed on Friday it had brought an application to intervene in an urgent application by Engineered Systems Solution (ESS) against the department of correctional services.

ESS has asked the high court in Pretoria to interdict the department from enforcing an alleged cancellation of the five-year contract to monitor 562 parolees.

The urgent application was due to be heard on July 18‚ but it was removed from the roll because of the application by the SIU.The department cancelled the contract from July 1‚ two years before the contract ends.

The SIU in a statement on Friday said ESS had failed to cite the unit as an interested party in the court proceedings‚ even though ESS knew that the unit had a real and substantial interest in the matter.

The SIU said during an earlier application brought by ESS in the high court in Pretoria during April – to challenge the cancellation of the contract - the SIU had informed the company that the unit had an interest in the matter.

The SIU said it was also in the process of preparing a review application to review and set aside all the decisions underpinning the award of two tenders to ESS.

The SIU said notwithstanding the clear interest that the SIU had in the matter‚ ESS brought two applications without citing the SIU as an interested party.

“The SIU has the necessary real and substantial interest to intervene in the applications that were brought by ESS against DCS‚” SIU spokeswoman Nazreen Pandor said.

In an application to intervene in ESS’s urgent application filed on July 18‚ Cornelius du Toit‚ chief forensic investigator at the SIU‚ said the unit conducted an investigation following the proclamation by President Jacob Zuma last year.

Zuma wanted the unit to investigate the affairs of the department of correctional services in relation to contracts awarded to ESS and payments made in that regard.

In the affidavit‚ Du Toit said the SIU started the investigations during May last year and certain aspects of the investigation were still ongoing.

“The SIU investigation revealed that a number of irregularities had occurred in the procurement processes.”

Du Toit said one of the most serious irregularities was the failure of ESS and its employees to have the correct security clearance.

“The State Security Agency … has now effectively confirmed that the staff of ESS‚ its subcontractors and the staff of such subcontractors were not screened by the SSA and consequently they do not have security clearance up to the level of ‘confidential’.”