SIU dismiss allegations of bias by Dendani Mkhize
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has denied allegations of bias and lack of impartiality in its investigation in the Digital Vibes tender scandal.
This comes after suspended health minister Zweli Mkhize’s son, Dedani Mkhize, claimed the investigating unit was unprofessional, biased and relied on media reports in its investigations.
Dedani, who allegedly benefited to the tune of R3.8 million rands from the Digital Vibes contract, took to Facebook to slam the SIU’s conduct.
But the unit’s spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago says there is no truth to the allegations.
“We have seen the statement and the facts that are in the statement are not correct. For example, he says that we have never given him an opportunity to be heard, which is not true because he has given us an affidavit and we have acknowledged receiving it, because when you submit an affidavit you are presenting a side of the story and we have used it for our investigation.
“Therefore, it is not correct for him to say that we have not given him an opportunity to present a side of the story. Unless if he wanted us to call him for a sit-down which we don’t do for each and every person.”
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Kganyago says the SIU follows due processes in all investigations and does not rely on media reports.
“The SIU investigate on the basis of a proclamation and there is a proclamation where we are investigating anything related to Covid-19, this investigation is about Covid-19. So, therefore, anyone who think we just investigate and base our findings on newspaper articles that cannot be true.
“If you have seen our affidavit that we have presented to the court, you would’ve seen the amount of work we put in. And those things were never on the media so therefore it cannot be true that we make our findings on the basis of media.”
Kganyago says the report has been handed over to President Cyril Ramaphosa and there will be a court date for the listed people to respond.
