Scramble for funds to probe state capture
Justice minister goes to Mboweni with cap in hand for new unit
● The state is scrambling to find funds to pay for the new state capture investigating directorate announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Justice minister Michael Masutha will ask finance minister Tito Mboweni this week for money for the unit, whose creation Ramaphosa announced in his state of the nation address on Thursday.
Masutha told the Sunday Times yesterday his department had no resources to fund the new directorate as he was “already scraping at the bottom of the barrel” to pay for the various commissions currently under way.
He said he would need Mboweni to make a special allocation for the unit in his budget speech on February 20.
Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane said such re- quests for budget adjustments would be handled in the October mediumterm budget, but the directorate could continue its work in the meantime.
However, Masutha said: “The president’s announcement provides me with an IOU to take to the minister of finance to give us the money we need.”
He said Mboweni “will have to find a slush fund” so the unit can start its work, adding that the exact amount needed is still being considered by the new national director of public prosecutions (NDPP), Shamila Batohi.
Intensive behind-the-scenes preparations have already begun to set up a state capture investigating directorate within the NPA. It will need specialist investigators and forensic experts who are likely to be drawn from the Hawks, the National Treasury, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), the South African Revenue Service (Sars), the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the private sector. NPA insiders and justice officials say Batohi began contacting super sleuths with expert knowledge of commercial crime and forensics even before her return last month from The Hague, where she was working at the International Criminal Court.
The formal creation of the unit will come once Ramaphosa issues a proclamation detailing its terms of reference, which will be sent to parliament for approval.
Masutha said the new investigative directorate would not become a permanent feature in the NPA.
“In its very nature, it is meant to be timebound, multidisciplinary and prosecutorially driven, as opposed to the norm, which is prosecutorially guided investigations,” the minister said, adding the president will make the final determination on how it will work. The directorate would be given a time frame of from three to five years to prosecute those implicated in state capture.
The Sunday Times understands that Batohi presented her plan of action to Ramaphosa on her return from The Hague, and outlined the model of a special state capture directorate at that time.
Sources close to the issue said Ramaphosa had also received proposals from legal and forensic experts on how to develop special capacity within the NPA to deal with the complex state capture cases, which he passed on to Batohi.
“In broad terms, the directorate will focus on the evidence that has emerged from the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, other commissions and disciplinary inquiries,” Ramaphosa said in his speech on Thursday.
Though the new directorate has been widely interpreted as being the relaunch of the Scorpions, which was disbanded in January 2009, the new unit is expected to differ from the Scorpions in significant ways.
Apart from having a limited life span, it will not hire permanent investigators and will only be able to initiate investigations directly related to state capture.
The Scorpions, which had a broad anticorruption mandate but were accused of abusing their powers and undertaking selective prosecutions, were disbanded during the term of president Kgalema Motlanthe.
Masutha did not rule out the establishment of a special court to try state capture cases, but said no request had been made for this yet.
He confirmed that candidates were being approached to head the new unit, but declined to give any names.
“We will work on the same model of the commissions of inquiry where people are seconded to work in this directorate. The idea is to get a multidisciplinary team with a variety of skills, but it is up to the NDPP on how she will source those skill sets,” he said.
A senior official in the department of justice said the lead investigators would have the forensic and intelligence expertise to build strong cases.
“This is not a new conspiracy to bring back the Scorpions,” the official said.
“There were existing provisions in the NPA Act that remained after the Scorpions were abolished.
“If you ask the NDPP what can you do to prosecute these corruption cases, it was obvious that the powers that already exist be used instead of having to amend legislation. It’s a no-brainer.”
A senior official in the NPA who asked not to be named said that if the new unit pursued crimes not in its terms of reference, it would be usurping the powers of the police.
“It needs to deal with specific crimes spelt out in the terms of reference,” this official said. “It is envisaged that this unit will focus solely on corruption and people with the required expertise will be seconded from other government departments like the Hawks, the Treasury, FIC, Sars and SIU.
“The NDPP will also look to reach out to auditing companies in the private sector to second people to the directorate on their payroll. Working to combat state capture should be seen as part of their corporate social responsibility,” he said.
It is understood that Batohi has already called for a review of state capture cases that were bungled or put on ice. This includes the Estina dairy farm case in which charges of fraud and corruption against eight accused, including former Oakbay CEO Nazeem Howa and Varun Gupta, were withdrawn late last year.
As she seeks to fill vacancies in the top structures of the NPA and find people with the expertise to pursue state capture investigations, Batohi has been in contact with several people who left the agency after falling out with her predecessors or with suspended deputy director Nomgcobo Jiba.