Herculean task awaits Batohi

SHAMILA Batohi reported for work yesterday as our first full-time National Director of Public Prosecutions since

Shaun “The Sheep” Abrahams unceremoniously retired last year after the Constitutional Court ruled in December 2017 that his appointment by former president Jacob Zuma had been invalid.

The expectations upon her are great, the hope intense, because of both the reputation that Batohi enjoys and the unstoppable effluent streaming out of the ongoing commissions of inquiry at the moment, leaving very few political leaders or even public servants untainted by allegations of corruption bordering on industrialgrade larceny.

This is a much different NPA to the one she left in 2009 when she had headed the NPA in KZN but, ironically, little different to the organisation she joined as a young lawyer, riven by apartheid cliques and secret, competing loyalties.

To get to the bottom of the third force activities tearing the province apart, she was forced to create a separate independent investigation unit of prosecutors and investigators because many of those who were ostensibly her colleagues had a vested interest in ensuring her efforts failed.

Perhaps she will have to do the same again, for she inherits an organisation which has yet to open a single dossier in the wake of the tsunami of revelations in the Gupta-leaks dossier or prepare to charge Zuma for corruption despite court rulings effectively ordering this. On top of it all, there are the almost daily damnations by the Bosasa whistle-blowers at the Zondo Commission.

It is doubtful in the extreme, even if she has the will to sweep these Augean stables clean, whether she has the resources – both capable and clean – to do the job. The pressure on her to fail will be immense because some of the most powerful people in this country will need her to – but the rest of us will be pressing just as hard for her to succeed.