Call for NPA to be swift in state capture case
JUST hours before a crucial meeting of the ANC’s top brass, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa called on the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to be swift in bringing those who have been implicated in state capture to book.
The NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit is on a hunt for R50 billion that was looted from the state.
The NPA yesterday met lawyers from McKinsey and Trillion, the companies served with preservation orders in the state’s attempt to recoup R1.6bn paid to them illegally via stateowned power utility Eskom.
Ramaphosa said Eskom has been one of the biggest stateowned companies plagued by financial and leadership instability, and corruption allegations linked to the Gupta family.
“We welcome the actions that they’re beginning to take and we want them to act with urgency to increase the tempo of the actions that need to be taken.
“The freezing of assets is an important component of this, but we want to see a lot more.”
Ramaphosa said the government had to stop coming out with doubtful messages on addressing what he called deepening rot in parastatals.
“It is unacceptable, totally unacceptable that state-owned enterprises that are owned by the nation and that were set up to advance the interests of our people on a collective basis have been hijacked and captured by certain interests.
“It’s good now that the whole thing has come into the open and the e-mails helped.
“Now the NPA and other authorities are looking very closely into this.”
Ramaphosa was addressing the South African team which he will lead to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, next week.
“The message that we have been putting across is now beginning to bear fruits and I think we are going to start seeing action on the reforms of the SOEs and on getting rid of the rot.
“Believe me that is the message we are taking to Davos because we have been asked this by rating agencies and by a number of investors offshore – the one thing they have raised over and over again is our state-owned enterprises.”
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, who will be part of the delegation to the WEF, said: “I think we have reached a stage where we cannot continue to be gradualist in addressing the problems that Eskom is facing.
“We need to act. It would seem that there are people who really don’t seem to understand the challenges that we are facing, the urgency we have, or who live in their own world with regard to those challenges.
“Quite frankly, the national fiscus is not going to be able to step in to bail Eskom out should anything horrible happen.”
By the time of publishing, it was unclear whether the ANC national executive committee would discuss President Jacob Zuma’s future, as per the push by Ramaphosa’s supporters.
ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule said Zuma’s fate was not on the party’s agenda.
“We said in East London that there is interaction between President Zuma, as well as president Ramaphosa, and that interaction will be continuing.”
The national fiscus is not going to be able to step in to bail Eskom out should anything horrible happen