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Cape Town - The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) filed an application at the Pretoria high court on Monday to intervene in a case aimed at prosecuting those who siphoned off about R5.4bn in railway contracts at state-owned rail firm Prasa.
“Essentially, this is an intervention application to compel the Hawks to investigate the corruption at Prasa and the NPA to guide the investigations,” OUTA's chief operating officer Ben Theron said in a statement on Monday.
Should the court grant OUTA permission to intervene in the case between Prasa, the Hawks and the NPA, it will mean that OUTA will become an applicant with Prasa against the Hawks and the NPA, explained Theron.
“Should the order be granted, OUTA will seek to have the court order that Prasa must hand over a copy of the confidential affidavits and files contained in Prasa’s case, whereafter OUTA should be permitted to file a supplementary founding affidavit within 10 days of receiving these documents. OUTA will agree to ensure these files remain confidential in accordance with court rulings,” Theron said.
In the first founding affidavit, OUTA’s head of legal services adv. Stefanie Fick explains that OUTA wants the same outcome as Prasa indicated it wants, and that the intervention is intended to avoid duplicate proceedings.
“OUTA’s application arises from a lack of faith in the Hawks and the NPA to carry out a real investigation and the strong public interest in ensuring that this investigation gets under way properly,” said Theron.
Fick’s second affidavit outlines "the mess" in Prasa and the problematic contracts, which the outgoing Prasa board chairperson Popo Molefe was “trying to clean up”, including the Siyangena and Swifambo contracts signed between 2009 and 2013, which involve about R5.4bn, Theron said.
The application is due to be heard on November 6 if it remains unopposed, Theron said.
