‘Why didn’t you arrest Atul Gupta?’

THE Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) has come under fire for not arresting Atul Gupta and his associates while a decision to prosecute in connection with the Estina farm case was awaited from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

This happened as the elite unit fended off accusations that it made the arrests only because of political pressure.

Briefing the police portfolio committee yesterday, acting DPCI head Yolisa Matakata said there was no basis for such a claim as speculated in the media.

The arrests of Gupta associates and Free State public servants were made soon after Cyril Ramaphosa was elected leader of the ANC.

Matakata told MPs she had informed the committee in November that their investigations into the Estina farm, which was allegedly used by Gupta-linked companies to defraud the Free State of R220 million, had been finalised.

“We had to wait for the NPA to make a decision. Probably, it (the arrest) was a coincidence,” she said.

ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane said the NPA’s delay in making a decision to prosecute was a worry.

“My concern is that it is almost four months,” Ramatlakane said.

He was surprised that despite the DPCI’s prosecutorial-driven investigations, it took four months to reach a decision.

Matakata confirmed that the NPA assigned prosecutors to guide their investigations.

“I can’t say why the NPA took that long,” she said, before saying it was normal for dockets to sit with the NPA for “a year or two”.

But Ramatlakane would hear none of it, and asked what law stated the DPCI could not arrest suspects until the NPA gave the go-ahead.

“The only body that has power to arrest is you (DPCI), or the police, to say the least,” he said.

Committee chairperson Francois Beukman claimed that white-collar crime suspects were treated differently to others.

“All suspects should be treated the same way. Are we now creating another hierarchy when it comes to white-collar crime?” Beukman asked.

The Freedom Front Plus’s Petrus Groenewald also questioned why the DPCI waited for the NPA before making the arrests. “If you have a good case, what is stopping you from making an arrest?” he asked. See Page 4