An investigation is to be launched by Legal Services Ombud Judge Siraj Desai into why a disciplinary committee appointed by the Legal Practice Council (LPC) acquitted an attorney of misappropriation after the disappearance of a R15m settlement he won for a disabled child.
Only R50 000 of the amount was ever paid to the child’s trust. “I have instructed my staff to investigate,” Desai told News24.
The LPC recently released a statement stressing that the Eastern Cape disciplinary committee’s misappropriation acquittal of Steven Kuselo Gqeba was not final and could be dismissed or overruled by the LPC’s national or provincial councils.
That disciplinary committee report was delivered seven weeks ago and addressed, among other things, undisputed evidence that a R15m settlement paid to Gqeba’s firm for a child, left severely disabled because of state medical negligence, had never been transferred to a trust for her.
In that report, the three-member disciplinary committee confirmed that “the undisputed evidence” before it showed Gqeba only had R718.12 in his trust account on 31 August 2023 and found he had failed to pay over to the child’s trust account “the amount ordered in the Order of Court"” in 2020.
The trust created for the child, who will need care for the rest of her life, has only ever received R50 000.
The committee nonetheless agreed with Gqeba, who was suspended from practice after an LPC application and is currently facing trial for alleged Road Accident Fund (RAF) theft, “that an investigation should have gone deep to prove the charge of misappropriation”.
“Therefore, the Legal Practice Council fell short of proving the misappropriation of the capital amount paid in terms of the Order of Court,” stated disciplinary committee chairperson Kangelani Songelwa, in a decision supported by attorneys Tonya Carinus and Mzawuteti David Kalimashe.
LPC spokesperson Kabelo Letebele said the committee that acquitted Gqeba over the unexplained disappearance of the R15m settlement was “independent”.
Under the LPC Act, however, it is the LPC that is charged with selecting and appointing suitable legal candidates for that committee, which tabled its report on Gqeba as “the disciplinary committee of the Legal Practice Council, Eastern Cape provincial office”.
While criticising News24 for not seeking its comment on the disciplinary committee’s report, the LPC has seemingly shied away from addressing its contents and how its members could have reached the conclusions it did in relation to the misappropriation case against Gqeba.
Instead, Letebele pointed out Gqeba had been “charged with several other charges emanating from other complaints in … how he handled payments made by the Road Accident Fund for the benefit of his clients”.
These charges focused on evidence that Gqeba had used settlement money paid to some clients to pay others, in what experts described as a “rolling” of trust account money.
Those “accounting irregularities” are arguably far less serious than the misappropriation of which the disciplinary committee acquitted Gqeba.
Letebele said it would have “been noted in the findings of the disciplinary committee that Mr Gqeba was found guilty of those charges and the committee will determine a sanction deemed appropriate which… shall be tabled for consideration by council which can decide to accept or reject the recommended sanction and/or come to a different conclusion”.
He has not responded to questions about whether the LPC was concerned that the disciplinary committee's misappropriation acquittal of Gqeba might provide grounds for him to challenge any further legal processes brought against him by the council.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Medico-legal lawyer off the hook in misappropriation case
Slow process to hold medico-legal lawyers accountable for fraud
Minister targets dodgy lawyers as SIU probes R30bn medico-legal claims