State capture: don’t focus on one family

YOUR recent front page article “Gordhan warns of Gupta influence on judiciary” (November 9) has left me with more questions than answers.

I have no objection to a commission of enquiry into state capture but it should not only focus on one family.

There is a dictum in law that “ei incumbat

probatio qui affrimat, non qui negat” – i.e. the burden of proving an allegation is on the party making it.

It serves no purpose in making wild, unsubstantiated allegations in public or in books – the correct and only lawful procedure is to lay criminal charges with prima facie evidence at a police station and to testify under oath in court about what you know on the evidence (not what you heard via other sources or read about in the media).

If former minister Pravin Gordhan is serious about state capture, he will assist our law enforcement agencies in tracking those involved in the illicit flow of money out of our country.

The auditor-general, in his report tabled in Parliament, acknowledged a festering problem vis-à-vis capital being illegally transferred out of South Africa.

Global Financial Integrity, a Washington research and advocacy group was more blunt and reported that South Africa had lost more than R1.5 trillion in illicit financial flows between 2003 and the end of 2012 alone.

Is it not corruption and state capture when money leaves our country illegally?

The Hawks, the NPA and our judiciary should also focus on those families and corporate companies who benefited from the state’s coffers prior to to our democracy in 1994. The awarding of 40-year Eskom contracts as we were heading towards our first democratic elections being just one case in point.