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We all know that the National Credit Regulator (NCR) has taken a knock with all the investigations into …irregularities recently. The past while saw Gabriel Davel former NCR CEO suddenly leaving and then Peter Setou soon under investigation. Now it seems that Sivo Pather, the Chief Financial Officer at the National Credit Regulator has got himself into trouble.

He has now also joined the list of suspended NCR staff. The suspension follows shortly after NCR board chairman Trevor Bailey called in Ernst & Young (E&Y) auditors to investigate staff complaints about tender irregularities.

Sivo has been accused (by his own staff) of unilaterally changing the terms of an IT contract and going contrary to the instructions of the NCR board. Apparently Sivo was authorised by the board to renew a tender with Praxis (an IT company ) for one year (Valued at R1.6-mil) but Sivo supposedly just went ahead and extended the contract to four years (with a value then of R4.6-million) instead. To make things more juicy, the owner of Praxis is Yugasen Naidoo, who is Sivo’s wife’s cousin.

Sivo has now been suspended along with his nephew, Denver Naidoo, who originally joined the NCR as an IT officer and is now head of that department. Some of the staff in Sivo’s department are saying that when Sivo was told he was suspended he supposedly came into the office and threatened them, saying he would “deal with them” if they sold him out to the investigators. Maybe he did not realise who had made the allegations and asked for the investigation in the first place.

Besides nepotism there are other allegations that have been made about abuse of company resources. Supposedly Sivo has been accused of taking his extended family (of 20 or more) on a holiday to Spain at the NCR’s expense. Ahhh family holidays…

That is not the end of the family connections it seems. It could be that Khesini Pillay the NCR’s management accountant is also a relative of Sivo’s…although that has to be confirmed – but allegations have been made and are now being investigated. It is hard to find out since Khesini is now also on suspension.

The offices must be quite quiet with all these suspensions or maybe they are busy with all these auditors and investigators walking around. Either way this can only inhibit the NCRs capacity at the moment.

How could someone get away with behavior like that (if it is true), you ask. Well, sadly some NCR employees have spoken to E & Y and accused Nomsa Motshegare (acting NCR CEO) of protecting him though they brought complaints to her. The NCR are saying that no further information can be released till further investigations have been made.

Who knows, maybe they will issue Sivo with a compliance notice.