THE former head of the Office of the State Attorney in Johannesburg is now shifting the blame to some of his subordinates for unlawful payments of millions of rand to disgraced advocate Hassim Ebrahim Kajee.
Kgosisephuthabatho Gustav Lekabe, the ex-head of the Johannesburg State Attorney’s Office, is accused of authorising over R32 million in payments, which were mostly channelled through briefing Kajee, who charged for services not rendered, double charging for the same work, submitting double invoices, or overreaching in accounts submitted.
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is also demanding R27m from Kajee, which he obtained through his allegedly corrupt and collusive relationship with Lekabe.
The SIU is also demanding the repayment of R32m by Lekabe in five claims valued between R300 000 and R27m.
Lekabe approached the Special Tribunal to introduce several special pleas, which sets up a special defence with a specific objective but does not deal with the merits, challenging the SIU’s alleged failure to join all the lawyers, departments, senior State officials and entities involved in the process of effecting the payments to Kajee, who represented them.
He complained that he only authorised 40% of the payments to Kajee yet there are other attorneys who fully participated in paying the disbarred advocate.
According to Lekabe, although in many of the invoices he approved payment of the amount reflected, there are others where he was not the official ultimately authorising payment.
In addition, Lekabe told the tribunal that if these third parties were not joined in the matter, it would mean that persons may have adverse findings made against them and they would not have been granted an opportunity to justify their conduct in relation to Kajee’s invoices.
However, the SIU stated that Lekabe’s special pleas will not be the finalisation of the matter as he himself signed off on some of the payments and, therefore, must answer that case as there is at least an undisputed amount of payments that he signed off on 40% of the payments to Kajee.
Lekabe’s special pleas included that the State Attorney’s Office never acted on behalf of the national Health Ministry in any of the matters, which form part of the SIU’s claims, for which Kajee rendered invoices and which are part of the unit’s claims against him (Lekabe) and therefore was wrongly cited (misjoinder).
Lekabe said objective evidence demonstrates that the attorneys he identified have a direct and substantial interest in the action and that all the relevant heads of departments and others should have been joined to the proceedings.
Additionally, he stated that other parties certified and authorised the payments that were paid over to Kajee and that he cannot be held liable.
Lekabe also indicated that the non-citation of the provincial state departments who approved and paid the relevant invoice of Kajee should be joined as well as that he, as former head of the State Attorney’s Office in Joburg, should not be held liable.
However, on Friday, Special Tribunal president Judge Margaret Victor said it was impermissible to allow an amendment to introduce third parties to action proceedings by circumventing the correct procedure based, for example, on the interests of justice or convenience or the lack of prejudice to the opposing party.
”An amendment to a pleading is an impermissible procedure to join parties to proceedings,” she said.
Judge Victor dismissed Lekabe’s application with costs.
Kajee was arrested by the Hawks in 2023 on several charges of fraud and appeared before the Johannesburg Regional Court, which granted him R20 000 bail.
He was also struck off the roll of advocates the same year.