Political analyst Dr Ntsikelelo Breakfast says the opening of a criminal case against former CEO of the Road Accident Fund (RAF) Collins Letsoalo, displays the required Parliamentary oversight.
SCOPA has laid a criminal charge against Letsoalo for failing to appear before it, in response to summons issued by the committee in November last year.
The summons was issued during SCOPA’s inquiry into allegations of governance failures, procurement irregularities, and deteriorating financial management at RAF.
Breakfast says this is a strong message to anyone who fails to appear before Parliament for accountability.
“Parliament has the right to summon anyone in the country to come and appear before the Committees of Parliament and to render an account about any matter. I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was the failure of Mr Collins Letsoalo … not to come before Parliament, which made Parliament to lay a charge against him. I think Parliament wants to cover its back because it has been criticised in the past for not providing oversight and for allowing unethical behaviour to persist in some of the organs of state,” explains Breakfast.
Corruption Watch Director, Lebogang Ramafoko says they welcome the steps taken by Parliament’s SCOPA to lay a criminal charge against Letsoalo.
“As Corruption Watch, we welcomed the action taken by SCOPA to lay charges against Mr Letsoalo, who had been given a number of opportunities to present himself and to come and explain what was clearly grossly negligent expenditure. This is especially important because RAF is meant to process payments to people who are already vulnerable who had suffered an accident including, but not limited like service providers like lawyers,” says Ramafoko.
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