Three officials from the Pretoria High Court have been placed on precautionary suspension following allegations of fraud and corruption.
This according to the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ).
“The three officials, who cannot be named at this time, are suspects in an ongoing investigation by the South African Police Service’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) looking into fraudulent and corrupt activities in the court.
“The OCJ takes a zero-tolerance approach to fraud and corruption and the officials were therefore placed on precautionary suspension to allow investigations to proceed without being compromised,” the OCJ said in a statement.
News of the suspensions come days after Chief Justice Mandisa Maya visited the Mthatha High Court. This after reports that officials at the court are allegedly embroiled in a bribery scheme soliciting payments from advocates to perform tasks already within the ambit of their jobs, including finding files that have seemingly gone missing, transcriptions and allocating dates for trial.
An internal and criminal investigation by the South African Police Service has also been opened in this regard.