Looted state money: don’t hold your breath

ABID by South African authorities to tackle the corruption that marred former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure might drag on for years, with no guarantees of successful prosecutions or recouping billions of rand pilfered from the state.

The government’s ability to halt “state capture”, a term used to describe the looting, and return the funds will be a key test for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s drive to restore the trust of the electorate and investors in public institutions.

About R100 billion might have been stolen, according to Pravin Gordhan, the former finance minister who now oversees state companies.

A high-powered judicial panel led by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo that was initially supposed to sit for six months says it needs at least two years to expose wrongdoing – and it doesn’t have the power to arrest anyone or seize assets.

Those tasks will fall to a police force and prosecution service that have been gutted of senior staff over recent years and have had a dismal record in securing convictions of the rich and powerful.

“The sheer scope of the challenge facing the state capture investigation team defies comprehension,” said Bart Henderson, chief executive of the Africa Institute of Corporate Fraud Management .

“Who says it’s going to lead anywhere? When it comes to getting stolen money back, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

The extent of the graft was laid bare in separate probes conducted by the nation’s graft ombudsman, a group of leading academics and panels of lawmakers.

They placed members of the Gupta family, who were in business with one of Zuma’s sons, and their allies at the centre of the corruption that Zuma and several cabinet ministers and senior officials allegedly facilitated.

Zuma was due in court on Friday to face charges of accepting bribes from arms dealers dating back to the 1990s. He and the Guptas, who have fled the country, deny wrongdoing.

Two attempts by the National Prosecuting Authority’s asset forfeiture unit to seize vehicles and properties belonging to the family, to recoup funds illegally diverted from a state-funded dairy project, have been overturned by a high court because of a lack of evidence.

Ramaphosa, who took office in February after the ANC forced Zuma to resign, has said his administration was committed to stamping out state capture and prosecutors wouldn’t wait for the Zondo commission to wrap up its work to charge those responsible.

He has appointed a new police chief and head of the elite Hawks corruption investigative unit, while the boards and management of several state-owned companies have been replaced.

Chief prosecutor Shaun Abrahams, who opposition parties accuse of obstructing cases against Zuma allies, has retained his post while a lawsuit filed by a civil rights group that aims to remove him, because his predecessor’s removal was unlawful, runs it course.

Justice Minister Michael Masutha said in a June 4 interview that he had instructed the prosecutions agency to co-operate with Zondo’s commission to ensure investigations were not duplicated and prosecutions were fast-tracked.

The government could ask the United Arab Emirates to extradite members of the Gupta family who are based there, he said.

Zondo said his panel intended to to start holding public hearings in August, and any evidence collected would be admissible in future legal proceedings.

“We will work flat-out to make sure this investigation doesn’t take one day longer than it should,” he told reporters. “We will try to make sure that we strike a fair balance between not delaying too much, but also making sure we do a proper job.”

The panel was allocated

R230 million for its first six months of work, Zondo told Talk Radio 702.

David Lewis, the executive director of South African transparency group Corruption Watch, said Zondo’s commission could unearth new evidence on state capture, help explain how it came about, identify systemic weaknesses and propose policy measures that could prevent it from happening again.

“I think some big names are going to ultimately go to jail,”

Lewis said. “But not everybody who deserves to go to jail is going to go. That is not a uniquely South African phenomenon.” – Nkululeko Ncana and Mike Cohen, Bloomberg