DA in picket over lax response to break-ins
THERE was seemingly no urgency and intention to probe and unmask the individuals behind the ongoing spate of break-ins and thefts at highlevel prosecutorial and law enforcement agencies in South Africa, the DA said yesterday.
DA MPs Zakhele Mbhele, who is also the official opposition’s spokesperson on police, and the party’s spokesperson on justice, Glynnis Breytenbach, led picketers outside the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head offices in Silverton, Pretoria following a break-in at the National Director of Public Prosecutions offices at Church Square in the Pretoria CBD on Monday.
“There has been a series of break-ins that are deeply concerning. They all point in a certain direction. You have to be particularly dense not to be able to work out where this is going. It is worrying… but it doesn’t seem to worry the people who should be worried – the NPA and the police,” Breytenbach said during the picket.
“There seems to be no urgency in these investigations and there seems to be no urgency in catching the culprits and bringing them to book.
“Secondly, the DA has laid a lot of charges against some very high-profile people, and some of those charges are over three years old. There appears to be no movement on those charges, we get no feedback. There appears to be no progress and nobody seems to care.”
She said yesterday’s picket was about drawing the attention of the South African public, making citizens aware that “their tax money should be used to investigate matters such as this, and not pay for lavish weddings at Sun City”. She said there was a major reason for South Africans to be deeply concerned.
The former NPA senior prosecutor said that besides picketing in the streets, the DA was pursuing accountability on several fronts.
“We write to them regularly. We ask parliamentary questions when they come to the portfolio committees, we drive those issues with them, but the results and the responses are very unsatisfactory. The public is not always aware of those avenues.
“So today we are saying to South Africa, ‘you pay a lot of money to have a National Prosecuting Authority, you pay a lot of money to have the South African police force, and that money you pay is so that they do their jobs, and we want them to do their jobs’.”
Some of the DA protesters at the NPA offices waved placards on which were written: “Mbalula: Tweleb not minister”, “NPA is captured” and “Covering up for Zupta?”
On Monday, the NPA confirmed that the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Gauteng North in Pretoria had been burgled.
“They broke into two offices on the second floor which are diagonally opposite each other. They stole two computers,” said Luvuyo Mfaku, the NPA spokesperson. The police are investigating. Last week, the offices of the Hawks in Pretoria were also burgled, and financial and human resources records were stolen.
In March, the Office of the Chief Justice was broken into. Computers with employment information of judges and employees were stolen. – ANA
The break-ins all point in a certain direction