Former OCJ employees set to appear in court over R225m IT contract

29 November 2023 - 05:00
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Three former OCJ officials will appear in court on Wednesday on charges related to a tender they are alleged to have benefitted from. Stock photo.
Three former OCJ officials will appear in court on Wednesday on charges related to a tender they are alleged to have benefitted from. Stock photo.
Image: 123RF/LUKAS GOJDA

Three former Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) employees accused of irregularly benefiting from a R225m IT contract are expected to appear in the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court on Wednesday.

This comes more than a year after the Hawks descended on the premises of the three implicated individuals around Pretoria and Kempton Park after the OCJ laid criminal charges.

The Hawks did not name the suspects at the time, but Hawks spokesperson Capt Lloyd Ramovha said they included the OCJ’s “former chief financial officer, former spokesperson and former case management director”.

“The OCJ reported the matter to the Hawks and hence the search and seizure operation to obtain documentary and electronic evidence,” he said.

“The preferred charges would be that of fraud, corruption in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (PRECCA) and the contravention of the Cybercrime Act. [There have been] no arrests as yet as investigations continue,” Ramovha said at the time.

The raid came after a Sunday Times investigation published in June last year in which the newspaper reported that three former officials were accused of setting themselves up for a large slice of the contract after they helped strike the deal.

Their last day at the OCJ was May 31 last year. The next day, they started new jobs as local partners to multinational media and technology organisation Thomson Reuters, which was awarded the contract by the OCJ. The three stood to earn 30% of the deal’s value, or at least R67.5m.

The contract related to the national roll-out of CaseLines, a digital court case management system.

TimesLIVE


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