• The office of Judge Dosio has confirmed that an allegedly fraudulent court order has been referred to the police.
• The order in question cites PetroSA’s interim chair as the applicant and PwC as the respondent.
• The UDM has called on the ministers of energy and police to probe the matter.
• For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.

The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has asked the police to investigate an allegedly fraudulent court order which cites PetroSA’s chairperson, Nkululeko Poya, as the applicant.

The order, supposedly signed by Judge Darius Dosio, is purported to list auditing firm PwC as a respondent.

In a letter to the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, and the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, the United Democratic Movement’s Bantu Holomisa, claims the allegedly fraudulent court order “downplays a PwC forensic report done in 2018, after it had been appointed by the Railway Safety Regulator [RSR] of which Mr Poya was its Chief Executive Officer”.

Poya was the subject of a forensic report conducted by PwC during his tenure as RSR’s CEO, which ultimately led to his suspension.

As was reported by Daily Maverick in 2019, Poya was appointed RSR CEO in 2011 and was placed on suspension in 2017 following claims that he had been conducting unauthorised investigations into the RSR board as well as a Mail & Guardian journalist.

Following a forensic investigation by PwC, Poya faced 14 gross misconduct charges related to alleged infractions dating back to 2014, according to a Mail & Guardian report. Apart from the unauthorised investigations, the charges ranged from misleading the board on financial matters by ordering the deletion of purchase orders from the RSR system, abuse of his corporate expense account and altering the scope of commercial agreements, the publication reported.

Poya resigned from the RSR in 2019 after being on suspension for 18 months and before disciplinary proceedings were concluded.

On Monday, Holomisa circulated a copy of the unstamped, one-page court order which states only that a forensic report conducted by “Pricewaterhouse Coopers” is “hereby reviewed”. Holomisa alleges that the case number cited on the court order is not on the High Court’s system. He called on Mantashe and Cele to probe the matter.

Judge Dosio’s office confirmed to News24 on Monday that the chief registrar of the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg had referred the matter to the South African Police Service for further investigation. 

Holomisa told News24 on Monday that he had received information of the allegedly fraudulent court order from a whistleblower. 

Poya, who serves as PetroSA’s acting board chairperson and a director of the Central Energy Fund, could not be reached by phone on Monday. 

The ailing state-owned PetroSA has been without a permanent CEO since October last year after Pragasen Naidoo – its first permanent CEO in eight years – was given a golden handshake to exit the organisation.

PetroSA is one of three state-owned entitles which fall under the Central Energy Fund, and will be folded into one South African National Petroleum Company. PetroSA’s main key asset, the gas-to-liquids refinery in Mossel Bay, has been on care and maintenance since late 2020 after its offshore gas reserves were depleted.

The Central Energy Fund declined to comment.