The Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) Chairperson, Songezo Zibi, said the committee will write a letter to the speaker of the National Assembly tomorrow to advice on committee’s intention to lay criminal charges against the former Road Accident Fund (RAF) CEO, Collins Letsoalo.
This is after Letsoalo skipped another parliament’s inquiry into allegations of financial irregularities at RAF on Wednesday.
He was suspended in June this year after facing allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement.
Zibi says the committee has given Letsoalo another chance to attend the hearing virtually even after he failed to appear before the committee on Tuesday.
He says they received a letter from Letsoalo’s legal team on Tuesday evening, stating that he will not be able to appear before the committee.
“I will write the letter to the Speaker, explaining what has transpired. I will also attach all correspondence we have received and sent to him since the summons was issued. I will say that the committee is of the view that Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act should be invoked, we believe that the necessary steps should be undertaken, criminal charges be laid and an investigations should take place.“ Zibi said.
Letsoalo has repeatedly refused to appear before the committee, and he recently claimed that the summons that were issued were delivered to his postal address even when he insisted that Parliament serve any papers on his lawyers.
However, Zibi dismissed these claims during an interview with SABC News.
He explained that the committee reached out to Letsoalo’s attorneys after he missed the sitting on Tuesday and his attorney confirmed receiving the Parliament’s letter.
WHY LETSOALO IS REFUSING TO APPEAR BEFORE THE COMMITTEE
Letsoalo stated that he will not appear before the committee during an interview with SABC News.
“I am not going to that kangaroo court, where Songezo Zibi is the chairperson, evidence leader, interrogator, witness elector, and adjudicator in one,” he said.
He said RAF employees who had appeared before SCOPA were not given an opportunity to tell their side of the story.
“You just arrive there, and people just start asking you about what other people were saying, some salacious things. I am not interested in that,” he said.
Letsoalo says Scopa wants to question him about his security detail, claiming that the committee had no jurisdiction to probe his security arrangements.
Meanwhile, Zibi alleges that Letsoalo lied about speaking to the State Security Agency (SSA). He says the former CEO told the committee he has been vetted and holds top secret clearance.
“He has never even submitted documents to the SSA for his vetting. It is simply not true that he says the SSA did the vetting. The first vetting was done by the SAPS.”
“The SAPS said there’s absolutely no threat against him. Then the Road Accident Fund Board commissioned a company called Maduna Security. Maduna Security did a threat assessment, which was rather inconclusive,” he said.
Zibi retweeted his old post on X, raising concern about public service members who tell casual lies in Parliament.
“I notice some (mostly) public service members may have become used to telling casual lies and misrepresentations in Parliament. It’s not a good idea to do this in our Committee (SCOPA),” he wrote.
Meanwhile, ActionSA’s MP Alan Beesley has called for the conviction of Letsoalo for ignoring a subpoena from Parliament.
“If somebody gets summoned to attend Parliament, they must. If they don’t attend, then they’re in breach in terms of the Privileges Act, and then they must face the consequences,”Beesley said.
