DA submits SIU Amendment Bill

Yesterday, on behalf of the DA, I submitted a Private Member's Bill to make changes to vital aspects of the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act (see Bill and letter).

The proposed changes are:

• A head of the SIU may only be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the National Assembly;
• A head of the SIU may only be removed with the agreement of the National Assembly;
• No person may act in the position of SIU head for longer than 6 months; and
• The SIU must table reports to parliament every six months on every investigation they are dealing with.

We have taken this step as we believe that the SIU is so crucial in the fight against corruption that it should enjoy the utmost credibility and function optimally to address this scourge our country faces. We also wish to avoid a situation such as that with which we now sit, where a person has been acting for 17 months, and the unit is clearly suffering. By adding in parliamentary oversight, we believe that it will provide at least some safeguard against the whims of a president whose primary interest is himself and not the good of the country.

We have learnt that Miseria Nyathi, the Head of Business Support at the SIU, continues her vendetta against those who were involved in her disciplinary hearing, the latest incident being that at least four people who are believed to have been involved in gathering evidence against her for an internal disciplinary enquiry have been marked down on their performance assessments by between 6 and 9%. This is, we believe, unheard of, as previously there has never been a decrease in scores of more than 3%, after moderation. To add insult to injury, Nyathi then also chaired the moderation committee.

This action follows Nyathi's statements in an Exco meeting during November 2012, at which she stated that she planned to ensure that those involved did not receive good scores for their performance assessments. According to our information, the head of IT has tendered his resignation as a result of this. If he leaves, this will be yet another senior, experienced person to leave the SIU.

All this is continuing as the Minister of Justice says nothing and the President continues snubbing his nose at the South African public. We clearly cannot trust him to do the right thing, so we have tabled this Amendment Bill in the hope that there are enough people in the ANC left who care about fighting corruption and ensuring that this unit is restored to the effective and efficient unit it once was.

Statement issued by Debbie Schafer MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, June 5 2013

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