State capture: NPA joins forces with international law firms to seize looted billions abroad

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is set to rope in international law firms to help seize assets and billions that were looted and transferred overseas by state capture collaborators.

NPA head Shamila Batohi, accompanied by her management team, laid down their plans before Parliament’s Justice and Correctional Services Portfolio Committee during a budget and work plan presentation on Tuesday.

Collaboration with other entities and overseas experts was the way to go, said Batohi, remarking that whether or not a person was mentioned in the state capture reports will not be the reason behind the NPA’s decision to prosecute or not.

“We follow our processes and the evidence on whether to prosecute or not,” said Batohi.

She said the prosecuting body is halfway through implementing its five-year strategic plan. Another collaboration through a task team consisting of the Hawks and the state capture commission has been formed to ensure smooth prosecution of those accused of state capture, Batohi added.

“The plan is bearing fruits, we are on track although we have had to do some prioritisation, which is understandable as it speaks to the heart of corruption. The next six months will be prudent and defining for the NPA, we’ve had to re-organise, re-focus and prioritise to make sure we respond to the Zondo reports.

“This success will draw increased attacks against the NPA and its staff. But we are ready.”

ALSO READ: NPA needs R750 million to respond to the Zondo commission

Batohi added that an extension of the NPA’s Investigative Directorate (ID) was important in expediting the cases.

“The Minister [of Justice Ronald Lamola] spoke about the ID’s mandate in our last meeting. His views will be critical in terms of moving the work of the ID forward. We have ongoing engagements with the Zondo commission on the usage of their digital forensic laboratory… we will be able to reach agreement on how the ID can access those critical cases speedily.”

The ID has declared 82 investigations and enrolled 20 cases for 65 accused.

The unit was established in 2019 as a temporary operational intervention to deal with the country’s corruption crisis, especially the barrage of state capture cases that penetrated the state and its public enterprises.

Its five-year mandate ends in 2024. Andrea Johnson was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa two months ago to lead the unit, following the resignation of Hermione Cronje.

A tight six-month deadline between April and September has been set to prosecute nine high level corruption cases, Batohi told the MPs.

READ MORE: NPA out of depth, and needs help to fight crime

Foreign asset forfeiture

As the work of the state capture commission winds down, public pressure mounts on the NPA to send the alleged looters to jail.

MPs asked the NPA management why it was taking so long to bring the “big fish” to justice and, hopefully, imprisonment.

“The criticism on the perceived slow pace in prosecutions is valid. You might be making progress but people want to see results,” said Democratic Alliance (DA) MP and former senior prosecutor, Glynnis Breytenbach.

Batohi replied that people tend to forget the good results too quickly.

“I agree we have to produce results, we are not where we want to be. There’s been some good cases and we do get congratulatory remarks that we are on track, but they quickly forget the good work.

“However, we need ongoing results… we are on the right track and have dedicated, incorruptible leaders in the NPA and I have more confidence than ever in terms of us delivering on our work.”

Collaboration

A collaboration with international firms to trace and recover looted money is underway.

“We realise that if we want to bring back the billions – it’s estimated a trillion [rand] was stolen through state capture – we need a bold and innovative asset recovery strategy. We worked on that, we certainly think it will get us closer to getting back the monies,” she told the MPs.

Talks on the extradition of the fugitive Gupta family who were at the centre of the alleged looting at state-owned enterprises have been ongoing for a while in government circles.

Last year, Lamola told journalists during a media briefing that the family would be brought back from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to answer. The two countries were finalising a 10-year-long ratification of extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties to enable cooperation, including the extradition of the family, which hastily left South Africa as evidence of state capture began to mount.

Police

Batohi decried the state of the SA Police Service (Saps), which she said needed resources and training for the massive corruption and organised crime cases to be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.

A stable and well functioning Saps, including good crime intelligence work, was urgent, she told the MPs.

“We depend on the police investigations, if there is no good training, if quality of investigations is bad, it will have an impact on prosecution, and this is across the board. We work with the Saps closely in all cases, including the July unrest, but at the end of the day we are not investigators, there needs to be investment in capacitating Saps and bringing stability.

She said she hoped that the appointment of new Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola would help in stabilising the police as good intelligence drives successful prosecutions in tough organised crime cases, such as copper cable, rail infrastructure and fuel theft.

“If we do not have solid intelligence, there is no way we will be able to work appropriately, there’s no way we will make an impact… so we depend on good crime intelligence.

“At the moment, sadly, we are not doing well. We need to improve this because people think South Africa is a haven for criminals. We need to look systematically into this, it is impacting on our country in a seriously devastating way.”

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Court cases in numbers

According to head of prosecutions services Rodney de Kock, the NPA’s conviction rate in sexual offences cases was at 75%, despite the impact of Covid-19 which shut down court services during hard lockdowns.

For the previous financial year, there were 137,956 enrolled cases with verdicts. The 2021/2022 financial year has 153,000 court verdicts.

“That indicates an 11% improvement in the number of cases we finalised on our court rolls over the last financial year, taking the impact of Covid, we are satisfied we are moving in the right direction, things are getting back to normal.

“However, Covid has caused a huge disruption on our court roll and led to increased backlog. We now hold monthly operation meetings with heads of courts, focusing on backlogs and interventions required to reduce that.”

He said new cases on the roll totalled 527,000 in 2021 and 556,000 in the current financial year, a 5.5% increase across the courts.

The NPA secured at least 201 life imprisonment sentences in the current financial year. The 20 to 25 year sentences totalled 106, said De Kock.

“Our 10 to 19 year sentences are at 378. On sexual offences, our conviction target is 75% as correctly indicated previously. I have to add that we did not reduce the conviction rate from 75… what we are achieving is between 70 and 75% rate.”

Regarding last year’s crippling riots that left 300 people dead and businesses destroyed, prosecutors are handling 156 court cases.

De Kock mentioned some of the areas in KwaZulu-Natal where prosecutions continued include 13 cases in Pinetown, 17 in Pietermaritzburg, 15 in Durban and 11 in Empangeni. 

NPA’s Investigating Directorate registers 20 state capture-related prosecutions