AS PARTISAN AS EVER
Fresh moves against Jacob Zuma’s erstwhile foes suggest SA’S law enforcement agencies remain captured and intent on settling old scores
The rot in SA’S law enforcement agencies runs so deep that SA can forget about large-scale prosecutions, improved revenue collection or making inroads into organised crime unless President Cyril Ramaphosa moves speedily to clean house.
In fact, his administration is likely to be undermined and his reform initiatives frustrated as long as those appointed as part of the state capture project are allowed to keep operating.
Jacques Pauw, author of the blockbuster The President’s Keepers, urges Ramaphosa to move quickly to replace the top structure of SA’S law enforcement agencies.
His book catalogues how key state institutions, including the SA Revenue Service (Sars), National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and State Security Agency (SSA), have been hollowed out and repurposed over the past decade to shield former president Jacob Zuma and his cronies from prosecution.
The first three people Ramaphosa should sack, he argues, are Sars commissioner Tom Moyane, NPA head Shaun Abrahams and Arthur Fraser, the head of the SSA.
“It’s absolutely critical in the case of Sars because of the impact it’s having on revenue collection; in the case of the Hawks because it influences their ability to investigate organised crime; and in the case of Abrahams because he affects the NPA’S ability to charge the state capturers,” argues Pauw.
“I think SA can forget about largescale prosecutions unless Ramaphosa can get the old guard back — people like [former Sars deputy commissioner] Ivan Pillay, [former Sars investigator] Johann van Loggerenberg, [former Hawks head] Anwa Dramat and [former NPA prosecutor] Glynnis Breytenbach.”
Last week, Pillay, Van Loggerenberg and his predecessor, Andries Janse van Rensburg, were served with summonses in connection with the so-called Sars rogue unit.
This intelligence unit investigated high-profile tax offenders, including prominent politicians and their friends. Allegations that it had “gone rogue”, based on a subsequently discredited report by KPMG, were used by Moyane to purge Sars of some of its best investigators.
On February 28, Pauw’s home in the Western Cape town of Riebeek Kasteel was raided by members of the Hawks armed with a warrant to seize any documents pertaining or belonging to the SSA.
The raid was a flop — nothing of importance was found — but more interesting is why Pauw’s legal problems and those of the three former Sars officials are resurfacing, despite Zuma having been replaced as SA’S president.
“I think mainly it’s because, despite there having been political changes, no changes have been made to the law enforcement agencies,” says Pauw in an interview with the Financial Mail.
For instance, the Hawks in Gauteng are still headed by Prince Mokotedi, who is fingered in Pauw’s book for alleged corruption. The instruction to raid Pauw’s premises may well, the author suspects, have come from someone like Mokotedi.
Not that Pauw is feeling besieged. Judging from the pathetic letter written to The President’s Keepers publisher NB Publishers by the investigating officer, he is dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
In the letter, Lt Col Johannes Makua, from the Serious Organised Crimes Unit’s crimes against the state division, asks NB Publishers to confirm in writing that, among other things, Pauw is the publisher of The President’s Keepers and that NB Publishers had permission to publish it.
Pauw, of course, is the author, not