EDITOR – With the State Capture report and all the drama surrounding the Gordhan prosecution it is almost impossible to absorb it all.
Watching the press conference by Shaun Abrahams, especially in the light of the previous press conference where he announced the prosecution of Gordhan, Pillay and Magashola, one could not help but think, is this man for real? At the first conference we had an arrogant, almost gleeful head of the NPA taking delight in his announcement to prosecute. By the second conference, the arrogance was muted and we now had a man desperately trying to convince the public that it was not his fault as he threw his two deputies, Torie Pretorius and Sibongile Mzinyathi under the bus.
An appearance before the relevant parliamentary committee saw him groveling and still reluctant to take any responsibility. He had never read about the sign, President Truman had on his desk – “the Buck Stops Here”
What angers us more? Is it the sheer blatant mismanagement of this process? Or is it the fact that he is insulting the intelligence of every one of us, with his ridiculous explanation. Does he really expect us to swallow his version of what went down in this matter?
In the first press conference to announce the prosecution, he was happy to take the credit. By the second press conference he was running for cover. The one comment that struck us was when he announced that everybody must be treated the same from the President down. Nobody is above the law. Really?
He waffled on about how the NPA works and how he doesn’t interfere once his prosecutors decide to go ahead with a prosecution. Can we really believe this rubbish? Here is a man who is meant to be educated who seems to be oblivious to how the economy works and then starts victim blaming because the accused did not make representations to the Hawks. Even the most naïve amongst us know that is the job of the State to prove the guilt of those that are charged.
The three men involved in prosecuting this case are all supposedly, highly qualified advocates. We say supposedly because as non-legal people we find it difficult to believe what Abrahams had said, and that is that the NPA had a winnable case.
Every day after they were charged, some legal expert, which included two former Constitutional Court judges, Johann Kriegler and Zak Yacoob and an array of legal academics pronounced that there was no prospect of them being found guilty and what is more there was no charge to answer. There had been over 3000 such early pension payments. So much for everybody being equal before the law as stated by Abrahams. In that no previous charges had ever been laid in those cases. Surely, any normal person, never mind the head of the NPA, would think to themselves, there is something wrong here.
Even the SARS legal department had given their legal blessing to this action and their external lawyers had stated that they did not agree with the prosecution. How did the Hawks and the NPA not know this? Were they in such a hurry to do the bidding of Number One, that they showed their incompetence to the world?
For us ordinary citizens, who are not au fait with the law, we have to wonder why Pravin Gordhan cannot do what he did, after checking the legality of the payment, while President Zuma can get rid of former NPA head, Mxolisi Nxasana and give him a golden handshake of R17, 3 million
Remember, that this is all happening just a short while after a High Court judge struck two senior NPA officials, Nongcobo Jiba and Lawrence Mrwebi from the roll of advocates. Various organisations are calling for the removal of the three advocates implicated in this vexatious prosecution. Of course there is no political interference! Pull the other one Shaun Abrahams. For us to believe that there is no political interference in this case, then we would have to believe that three senior people in the NPA are totally incompetent. They made a decision that even a law student at university would not have made.
Regardless of the reasons, the story put out by Abrahams is unacceptable and he, Pretorius and Mzinyathi must be struck from the roll of advocates.
Kevin Dunkley
Cheryl Johnson
SAVE OUR BEREA
