Justice minister refers R415-million IT contract to SIU and Hawks

Inside the Johannesburg Master’s office on 17 August. Archive photo: Seth Thorne

• Justice minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said a long-running digitisation project has contributed to service disruptions and delays at the Masters’ offices across the country.
• The SIU will investigate whether Veritas Engineering and Project Management Consultants (Pty) Ltd, which was paid R415-million between 2022/23 and October 2025, delivered value for money. Its contract for various IT systems ends on 10 September 2026.
• The investigation will examine whether the contract gave a private company access to government records, followed government policies and laws, and whether departmental negligence contributed to the collapse of services.

On an unannounced oversight visit to the Pretoria Master’s office, following numerous complaints, justice minister Mmamoloko Kubayi saw for herself the dysfunction of its IT system.

She said the disruption of services at an office that provides “critical support to members of the public” was concerning.

She has now asked the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the Hawks to probe the department’s digitisation project. SIU spokesperson Selby Makgotho confirmed the minister’s referral.

The minister said she expects “a thorough account of what transpired with the digitisation project”.

“Any evidence of misconduct, negligence, corruption or deliberate actions … will be dealt with decisively,” she said.

The digitisation project was meant to speed up and improve services. But it has dragged on for years, remains unfinished, and appears to have had the opposite effect on efficiency.

Kubayi said the project had contributed to service disruptions at courts and Masters’ offices in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

She expressed concern over allegations that the service provider, Veritas Engineering and Project Management Consultants (Pty) Ltd, was “denying” officials access to state records.

Veritas systems are implemented across various justice offices within the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, including high courts, magistrates’ courts, labour courts and Masters’ offices.

Spokesperson for the minister, Palesa Rammitlwa, told GroundUp that Veritas sent a letter, apologising for the disruption, blaming “instability within the department’s network infrastructure”.

She confirmed that “access to the Veritas portal has been restored” and officials are currently addressing the backlog of transactions.

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ) said the investigation will probe whether the contract gave a private company access to government records, whether government policies and laws were followed, whether the contracts provided value for money, and whether departmental negligence contributed to the collapse of services.

GroundUp contacted Veritas, who then referred us to their legal representative. David Vleck of Cox Yeats said it was the first he was hearing on the matter and could only act on instruction.

Years of dysfunction

Digitisation was intended to address growing volumes of records, limited storage space, slow retrieval of files and poor access to records across the DOJ. The department also wanted to make it easier for people to lodge matters.

The project was first significantly disrupted by a September 2021 ransomware attack that took systems offline. While services were subsequently restored, they remained far from satisfactory.

Veritas was first appointed in 2022 for off-site storage of physical records together with scanning, indexing and retrieval services.

Rammitlwa said Veritas was paid from the 2022/23 financial year to October 2025 R413.2-million. The agreement is rate-based with a R49.8-million ceiling for the current period.

The contract will end on 10 September. Veritas has given formal notice that it does not wish to extend the contract.

Rammitlwa said a new contract will be awarded since digitisation forms part of its approved procurement plan for 2026/27.

Government’s ICT failures

GroundUp has repeatedly reported on delays at Masters’ offices with digital issues often cited.

At the Johannesburg Master’s, for example, lawyers told GroundUp in February that the office was struggling with backlogs, delays and glitch-prone digital platforms.

Six months later, we saw that little appeared to have changed. The Johannesburg office remained a “paper fortress”, with files piled on floors and spilling into corridors. Lawyers said systems were frequently offline.

There were also allegations that backlogs have contributed to a corrupt “runner” system in which people pay intermediaries to get matters dealt with more quickly, despite services at the office being free.

In December 2025, Kubayi said that the department had already identified problems with its broader Information and Communication Technology contracting.

A review had found over 20 vendors whose contracts were poorly managed or inadequately monitored, including contracts that had been repeatedly renewed.

The minister said the department had accelerated the Master’s office turnaround strategy, with private-sector partners helping stabilise its payment system. Several matters had been referred for criminal investigation.

The Public Servants Association (PSA), representing more than 250,000 public-sector employees, said “public servants and citizens have suffered the consequences of dysfunctional systems, with court processes, administrative functions, and communication channels severely disrupted”.

They added that it has “undermined service delivery, eroded trust in the justice system, and placed additional burdens on overstretched staff”.

The proposed investigation, the PSA says, should serve as a “turning point” for the government to treat digitisation “as a genuine tool for service delivery rather than an opportunity for abuse.”

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