Money spent on Zondo inquiry could have been better used by NPA, Hawks
It has been almost two years since the establishment of the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture. The commission, chaired by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, was established to look at the extent of state capture in SA under Jacob Zuma’s presidency, which former public protector Thuli Madonsela briefly touched on in her report that set it in motion.
Though the commission initially had a tight time frame, it has been given an extension until the end of March 2021 to wrap up the work it started in earnest in August 2018.
Over this time, the commission has delved into a mountain of allegations of fraud and corruption at state-owned enterprises such as SAA, Eskom, Transnet and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA, among other things.
While the extent of the evidence is in itself exhaustive, the price tag for the inquiry is high. Parliament this week heard that R700m had been forked out by the state for the commission, slightly more than double the amount mentioned by justice minister Ronald Lamola in September 2019.
This amount of money leaves a sour taste in the mouth as it comes against the backdrop of SA’s criminal justice institutions begging for funds to do their jobs.
The Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) are going to have to investigate and prosecute these matters, regardless of the commission’s outcomes.
It is expected that many prosecutions of those guilty of looting the state will arise from the probes at the commission. But given the nature of criminal prosecutions, the information cannot just be passed on to the Hawks and the NPA.
The evidence has to be prosecution ready, and as a result of this the law enforcement agencies cannot just take the information arising from the public hearings and evidence collected by the state capture commission. They have to conduct their own investigations into the matter, which needs money and could result in further delays.
With the Hawks and the NPA crying out for funding to plug their skills gap, it has the effect of delaying consequences for those who have acted with impunity, and ensures that accounting for the billions, if not trillions, stolen from the state is postponed.
The VBS Mutual Bank matter is an example. It took almost two years after the forensic report into the scandal was completed and made public for the first arrests in relation to the looting of the bank to be made. The investigation is not over.
The question has been raised numerous times since the start of the state capture commission about whether it was necessary to hold an inquiry or whether the money spent on such an exercise should not go towards the institutions that need to successfully investigate and prosecute those responsible.
National director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi asked MPs this week to imagine what it would cost law enforcement and the NPA to prosecute the corruption cases arising from the commission, given the costs of the commission itself.
She said skills and capacity would be required to properly address the avalanche of work that is going to come to the NPA’s investigative directorate from the Zondo commission and other commissions of inquiry.
Acting director-general of the justice department Jacob Skhosana told MPs the main cost drivers of the commission were the investigation and legal teams. The commission had asked for an additional R42m to sustain the investigations as this budget had run dry.
It is even more evident that the skills built up for the Zondo commission, and the money spent on doing this should rather have been transferred to the NPA and Hawks. The same people who were seconded to the commission could have been seconded to the investigative directorate.
Batohi this week said the NPA had been hollowed out of investigation and prosecution skills for complex corruption cases and had been engaging with the commission about law enforcement and the investigative directorate taking over its IT systems and capabilities. This would be a help in holding accountable those responsible for the largescale corruption, though the NPA would not be able to pay the same “unsustainable” salaries paid by the commission for these skills.
It can be argued that the commission is doing important work, and it has been riveting to hear accounts of what was happening during state capture, but we don’t have time or money.
We are in the middle of a pandemic set to push the economy into its biggest slump in a century. The Treasury has had to adjust the budget to cut spending and ensure the funds needed to deal with Covid-19 are available.
And the scourge of corruption continues.
The Special Investigating Unit has reportedly said that complaints of alleged corruption relating to the response to the Covid-19 pandemic are piling up.
The longer the delays in getting cases prosecution-ready and accused people in the dock, the bigger the mountain becomes for SA’s law enforcement agencies. While a bottleneck in cases would make the job of law enforcement even tougher, the delay in accountability and consequences doesn’t serve SA.
It benefits those hoping the wheels of justice never get the chance to turn their way.
COMPLAINTS OF ALLEGED CORRUPTION RELATING TO THE RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ARE PILING UP