A company that provided health experts to the state attorney to give evidence in medico-legal cases is the subject of a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) inquiry after it emerged it had been paid R123m in just three years - often in double payments.
The SIU discovered the "anomalies" while going through the finances of the Office of the State Attorney (OSA).
It picked up a huge number of double payments made to Janilite from 2015 to 2018. Janilite is contracted to provide medical personnel to the OSA as expert witnesses.
The SIU said that one senior state attorney was linked to Janilite and another was found to be responsible for duplicate invoices. The former had resigned.
The company has paid back more that R700,000, but the SIU continues to probe the payments.
These revelations were made in a recent presentation by the SIU to parliament's portfolio committee on justice.
Committee chair Bulelani Gwanishe said the committee was concerned about the "issue of medico-legal fraud" and that the National Prosecuting Authority and SIU must act speedily.
"There was a legal practitioner who was fraudulently getting R66,000 a day every day, except Saturdays and Sundays and holidays, for three years without doing anything. We think that is highly unacceptable and we are really concerned about the reputation of the legal profession," said Gwanishe.
Janilite, which has had an exodus of directors in recent times according to the company's records, has denied any wrongdoing.
There was a legal practitioner who was fraudulently getting R66,000 a day every day for three years without doing anything
— Committee chair Bulelani Gwanishe
The investigation follows a proclamation signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 for a probe into "maladministration in connection with the affairs of the Office of the State Attorney".
The proclamation instructed the SIU to dig deep into any payments made by the state attorney in a manner that was "not fair, competitive, transparent, equitable or costs effective", and look into any unlawful conduct by officials of the office.
The use of Janilite's services by the state attorney's Johannesburg office was stopped after the SIU established that there was a possibility of a "large number of duplicate payments".
Janilite said the termination of relations by OSA Johannesburg "was premised on internal misinformation surrounding the payment process". The company, through its lawyer Nicqui Galaktiou, said it had provided "over 8,000 reports, joint minutes, addendum reports, court attendances, laboratory tests and other logistics for various state attorneys".
All money invoiced for and paid to it was for these services, the company said, adding that "any allegation to the contrary is false and slanderous".
The company said it does not owe a cent to the OSA, but that the state attorneys' offices owe it R22m.
"Janilite, if anything, has been funding the state attorney's negligence matters while waiting years for payments and reimbursements," Galaktiou said.
"Janilite has made numerous demands for payment but to no avail. Undertakings have been given by the state attorney, however the indebtedness remains due, notwithstanding multiple requests to resolve the outstanding payments with the acting state attorney," said Galaktiou.
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