PRETORIA, Gauteng — Newly appointed Special Investigations Unit (SIU) head Leonard Gaoretelelwe Lekgetho has unveiled a comprehensive strategy to aggressively recover stolen money and return it to state coffers while modernizing the agency’s approach to combating endemic corruption.
Following his official appointment by President Cyril Ramaphosa, Lekgetho succeeds his predecessor, who vacated the position in February to become the national director of public prosecutions. In outlining his strategic focus, Lekgetho emphasized that the SIU will balance high-profile state capture investigations with the equally damaging, everyday corruption occurring at the local government and smaller departmental levels.
A cornerstone of the new leadership’s plan is a shift from reactive investigations to proactive prevention. Lekgetho revealed that the SIU has developed a corruption risk prevention framework, currently awaiting government approval, designed to stop malfeasance before it occurs. A key component of this framework is the implementation of lifestyle audits across government departments to identify officials living beyond their means, a red flag that could have preempted scandals like the Tembisa hospital saga.
Addressing the Tembisa hospital case, Lekgetho highlighted systemic failures, including the manipulation of supply chain management processes. He noted that criminals exploited a national treasury threshold change—which raised the limit for requiring a full tender from R500,000 to R1 million—by submitting collusive quotations from multiple shell companies. Furthermore, a lack of segregation of duties allowed the same individuals to request, approve, and sign off on deliveries that never materialized.
The SIU has observed the same modus operandi within Eskom, where the urgency of preventing load-shedding was exploited to push through numerous sub-R1 million quotations. In response, the SIU recently froze properties linked to these irregularities and has since co-developed a targeted action plan with Eskom. This plan includes strict timelines, monitoring activities, and mandatory fraud risk awareness training for employees.
To keep pace with evolving financial crimes, Lekgetho is heavily prioritizing technological and methodological upgrades. The SIU is digitizing its processes to improve investigation turnaround times and has established a Cyber Crime and Anti-Corruption Academy. This academy will train domestic law enforcement on emerging corruption trends, featuring international expert speakers.
The agency is also expanding its capacity in forensic accounting, having secured memorandums of understanding with universities to guarantee employment for top final-year forensic accounting students. This addresses the complex reality of tracing money flows through hundreds of bank accounts. Additionally, specialized cyber units are being equipped with modern technology to analyze cell phones, retrieve deleted data from servers, and track illicit funds hidden in cryptocurrency.
Data analytics and predictive modeling are being integrated to flag anomalies early, while the SIU is actively collaborating with state universities to harness young programming and robotics talent. This partnership aims to build custom artificial intelligence (AI) systems tailored to the SIU’s specific investigative needs, rather than relying on off-the-shelf software.
Lekgetho identified several “quick wins” for his first 100 days in office, primarily centered on reviewing and aligning the SIU’s standard operating procedures with global best practices to ensure faster, more precise investigations and asset recovery.
Ultimately, Lekgetho stressed that defeating sophisticated, organized corruption requires breaking down institutional silos. He called for a whole-of-society approach, urging closer collaboration, intelligence sharing, and joint efforts among all state law enforcement agencies to protect whistleblowers and ensure that no stone is left unturned in the fight against state looting.
