Cash crunch leaves Zondo teams unpaid

• Investigators, lawyers out of pocket for five months • Funding slow to arrive, says Mosala

Investigators and lawyers contracted by the Zondo commission have not been paid for the past five months because of a shortage of funds, with some effectively working as volunteers and others taking on outside work.

The crunch comes as the commission reaches a crucial point, with many of the key individuals implicated in corruption during the administration of Jacob Zuma now appearing under cross-examination.

Commission secretary Itumeleng Mosala said in response to questions from Business Day on Wednesday that “the funding that the commission was expecting to get from the government has been slow in coming even though the commission has received the necessary promise of support for funding”.

In October 2020, finance minister Tito Mboweni allocated an additional R63m to the commission. Total expenditure on the commission so far is about R800m, justice & correctional services minister Ronald Lamola said in reply to a question in parliament on Wednesday.

Additional funding, which was specifically allocated to a close-out report, has not yet flowed to the commission, but Mosala said “we can confirm that arrangements are in place to make the funding available, and investigators and legal professionals will be paid soon”.

But since the October funding allocation, the commission has been extended again by another three months. This follows an extension granted in February 2020 until the end of March. The commission now has until the end of June to complete its work.

Since the commission started

its work in August 2018 there have been significant developments, with some private sector companies, such as global consultancy firm McKinsey, Bain & Co and auditing firm KPMG, fingered for their part in state capture and subsequently paying back money from contracts. Law enforcement agencies are moving on some of the matters raised at the commission.

In last month’s budget, no additional funding was allocated to the Zondo commission, with Mboweni adamant it must finish its work because the perpetual extensions could not go on.

“This [commission] just keeps going on and on, so it must end at some stage.

“I don’t think I’m going to sign up on another tranche of cash to the state capture commission.

They must finish their work,” he said on the day of the budget.

Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane said the department of justice would need to reprioritise its budget to fund the further extension.

He raised as a concern the cost of the commission and high daily remuneration fees of the legal team.

LINE IN THE SAND

Mosala said that the minister of justice had confirmed that the government, through the department, would fund the additional three months’ extension. This was also confirmed by the Treasury, which said it was not aware that the commission had repeatedly run out of funds over the past five months.

Mboweni’s sentiment that the commission is carrying on too long is shared by many in the legal profession who recognise that as the commission could potentially go on forever, given the amount of evidence there is to probe, a line in the sand must be drawn at some point.

The role of the commission is not to bring about criminal prosecutions, which can be done only by the National Prosecuting Authority.

The cost of the legal teams, in particular, is substantial.

In a briefing to parliament in November 2020, Jacob Skosana, the acting director-general of the department of justice, said that the rates of 13 senior counsel appointed by the commission ranged from R23,000 to R38,000 a day. Another 17 counsel charged between R9,500 and R28,000 a day. The investigative team of 96 was appointed at auditor-general rates, which are higher than public service rates because of the expertise required.

PUBLIC CALLING

The commission said on Wednesday that it deeply regretted that “it has had to put its highly loyal and top-class professional teams through this generally unacceptable situation for any worker in any profession or employ. At the same time, the commission is extremely grateful to the investigation and legal teams for not abandoning ship but instead maintaining their commitment to what is arguably the most important public calling in ‘post-apartheid’ SA”.