Johannesburg — MORE government departments were turning to the Special Investigating Unit in an effort to deal with internal corruption and maladministration cases, unit head Willie Hofmeyr said yesterday.

The departments receive these services at less cost from the unit than from private-sector institutions.

The unit can also recover sufficient cash to cover the cost of probes.

Hofmeyr, addressing the National Press Club in Pretoria yesterday, said that in the past year 31% of the unit's budget had come from departments and this was expected to grow to 49% in the current financial year.

He said the unit could tackle all aspects of investigations as it had skilled and experienced forensic investigators, auditors, analysts and lawyers.

The unit has forged a partnership with the correctional services department following evidence presented to the Jali Commission which led to a need to probe corruption in prisons.

The department is paying the unit R6m a year for three years to root out corruption in the country's 179 prisons.

Hofmeyr said the amount paid by the department had enabled the unit to have 25 full-time staff to look at the prisons.

Some of the problems in prisons relate to procurement and specifically to pharmaceutical stock.

Other problems include fraud related to medical aid and petrol and maintenance cards.

Hofmeyr said there was a saving on the department's medical aid fund of R370m last year as a result of the probe carried out by the unit, the department, the Scorpions, police and the fund.

"Last year, claims should have been R910m and this was reduced to R540m," Hofmeyr said.

He said the unit had also completed investigations in 53 prisons and had referred 171 cases for criminal action.

The justice department has also donated R8m a year to fight corruption and maladministration in the country's 56 problem courts.

Another investigation requested by the transport department, into the issuing of licences in Limpopo, had revealed fraud on a massive scale.

The unit found that 15000 of 120000 licences had been issued irregularly in the province since 1994, and 2400 had been cancelled so far.

Hofmeyr said the transport department had requested the unit to extend the investigation nationally and the department would contribute R17m a year for this task.

The unit would place 70 full-time investigators on this case.

The unit had tripled in size over the past three years due to the growing funding from departments and an increase in budget from the treasury, he said.