Compensation chief denies wrongdoing

Cape Town - Compensation Fund Commissioner Shakes Mkhonto has denied claims of nepotism and wrongdoing amid allegations that he had appointed senior managers without conducting interviews.

"We have a recruitment and selection policy within the department and the fund is bound by that. All appointments were duly processed and are open to scrutiny," he said in a statement issued by the department of labour.

Mkhonto also denied claims the fund had put pressure on injury on duty medical claims processing company Compsol to process its claims ahead of other medical claims, as well as allegations that trade unions presented him with proof that Compsol tampered with accounts.

"We have no evidence that such things happened," he said.

"We have independent internal audit and risk units and they both report to the audit committee, I cannot interfere with the duty of the risk manager and his unit as I would be flouting proper corporate governance procedures."

Mkhonto said the units had made "tremendous gains in rooting out corruption and fraud within the fund".

He added that 12 medical practitioners and compensation staff members would be appearing before the special commercial crimes court on fraud related charges in March.

"We will pursue the deregistration of these practitioners with the Health Professions Council of South Africa," he added.

The Compensation Fund became embroiled in controversy last year when a presentation to Parliament's portfolio committee on labour revealed a R1bn decrease in compensation paid out to injured workers in the 2009/10 financial year.