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COPS TO INTERROGATE LORRAINE, 3 OTHERS

06/05/2015 02:41:00 BY MUSA SIMELANE

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A woman believed to be a police officer at the Chief Justice’s residence. (Pic: Joseph Zulu)

LOBAMBA – The Controlling Officer of the Judiciary, Lorraine Hlophe, and three other individuals will be interrogated by the police on the disappearance of 10 laptops from the High Court.

The laptops were stolen about six years ago and after all these years, police have not yet cracked the case. But their appearance before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament yesterday gave rise to the hope that perhaps the case could soon be solved.

Controlling Officer (CO) Hlophe, Principal Accountant Albert Masuku, and Assistant Registrars Musa Shongwe and Shoes Dladla from the High Court, all said they will avail themselves to the police if that would help bring the culprits to book. No date was immediately set for this though. “Somebody among us here knows where the computers are. We can go to the police, it’s the correct route. Everybody must be investigated, including the controlling officer lotishaya muhle (making herself look good) here,” Masuku told the PAC in his submissions yesterday.
Hlophe said talks about this issue can go on for a long time, but the comforting fact was that the truth would surface. She expressed readiness to be investigated by the police.

The laptops in question were part of a batch of 46 which were purchased for the use of judicial officers, but when it was time to distribute them about 10 were missing. Although this happened years ago, the PAC was concerned that no one had been arrested thus far, and this matter remained outstanding in the committee reports.

All four individuals were given turns to narrate their versions on how it came to be that the laptops went missing. Masuku, who was supposed to be in charge of the Accounts Department, which is responsible for the storeroom where the laptops were kept, clarified to the PAC that he never knew that they were missing until much later. He explained how the storeroom was managed and that two officers, Shongwe and Dladla, were the storekeepers.