Former prisons boss Linda Mti expected to hand himself over

South Africa’s former prisons boss Linda Mti is expected to hand himself over to police on Thursday morning.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane said an agreement was reached between Mti’s lawyers and the Hawks.

Mjonondwane said Mti had to hand himself over between 11am and noon.

He was a suspect, along with former Bosasa chief operations officer and state capture whistleblower Angelo Agrizzi, former correctional services chief financial officer Patrick Gillingham and former Bosasa CFO Andries van Tonder.

Agrizzi, Van Tonder and Gillingham appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Pretoria on Wednesday. They were released on R20,000 bail each.

Gillingham is facing one count of contravening the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. The charge sheet lists 31 gratifications allegedly received by Gillingham, who also faces five counts of money laundering.

According to the draft charge sheet, Mti allegedly enjoyed free flights, accommodation and even had a traffic fine paid in exchange for his role in tenders awarded to Bosasa.

Mti allegedly scored benefits worth nearly R1m.

The charge sheet showed that between May 2004 and July 2015, Mti received gratifications including car rentals, local flight tickets and accommodation at local hotels to the value of R975,637.22.

It states that Mti, who was a public officer employed by the correctional services department, directly or indirectly accepted or agreed to accept unauthorised gratifications from Agrizzi and O Van Tonder. He also scored from Bosasa and two other companies, Sondolo IT and Phezulu Fencing.

The three companies are named in the court papers.

One of the gratifications was a traffic fine of R322 that was paid for Mti in Port Elizabeth in July 2015.

The draft charge sheet said Mti also received about 24 cash payments between March 2004 and December 2007. The lowest amount was for R2,500 and the largest for R9,000.

It also alleged that Mti failed to ensure compliance with the procurement processes of the correctional services department in relation to a number of tenders, which resulted in the Bosasa group of companies being awarded those tenders.