By Goodhope Dlangamandla
25:08:2022

The Civil Association society organization of public interest SA, Tebogo Khaas, says the chief justice is not to be implicated anyhow in the 225 million rands as only the officials get into the office running.

“The chief justice is far removed from what is happening. I think the timing also couldn’t have been very good because the chief justice has just released the final report on state capture, and now having the office of the chief being implicated in such wrongdoing is quite unfortunate, but this it should not impact on the work of chief justice integrity,” said Tebogo.

This comes after the Civil Organisation Public Interest SA called for the cancellation of the R225 million IT contract awarded to Thompson and others that implicates three former officials of the office of chief justice.

Khaas said the OCJ must cancel the contract, and a proper procurement process should be instituted.

“On the basis that we can find prima facie evidence, which I would imagine that probable cause the OCJ to lay a criminal complaint to the hawks. If prima facie evidence of wrongdoing having been occasioned, and we say on that basis, the OCJ must just cancel the contract and go out and do a proper procurement process,” says Tebogo.

He also urged the Chief Justice and the HAWKS to investigate the pilot project that preceded the actual contract awarded about R43 million for management of the CASELINE system in Gauteng.

The HAWKS raided the homes of the three former officials at the OCJ who were allegedly instrumental in setting up the six-year IT contract during the COVID-19 pandemic, and each one stood to gain R67 million on Tuesday.

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