The forensic task team probing malfeasance at South African Airways (SAA) is trying to ensure nine criminal dockets reach court and 84 questionable contracts are laid bare, the airline's head of legal and compliance, Vusi Pikoli, said on Wednesday.
Pikoli, a former national chief prosecutor, told MPs cases that were with the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) but went cold had been reopened with the aim to ensure a proper investigation and eventual prosecution in each. He noted that the investigations had earlier suffered because of the well recorded hollowing out of capacity both at the elite police unit and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
"We have been able to convert some of these cases into actual case dockets," he told Parliament's portfolio committee on public enterprises.
"Four have not yet been converted into case dockets."
However, he said, two were with the NPA at a decision-making stage.
"It is now for the NPA to take a decision based on the quality of the dockets."
It is reliably understood that one of these dockets aims to indict a former member of the SAA board, implicated in the erosion of the finances of the loss-making national carrier.
Pikoli said the forensic task team wanted to hand over the 84 contracts it deemed questionable to the Special Investigating Unit because it had the power to recover money lost on dubious deals.
A proclamation had been prepared that will allow the SIU "to delve deeper into those contracts" and it was now awaiting President Cyril Ramaphosa's signature.
Pikoli said SAA had fallen victim to organised crime syndicates, with the ravages including theft of aircraft components and utility loading devices at the airline and the task team he has headed since February wanted to ensure the full extent of the alleged criminality was detected and punished.