THE National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) yesterday revealed that 1 098 cases referred to it by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) were being investigated by the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI, or Hawks).
This as the NPA declined to prosecute 253 cases the corruption-busting unit referred to the prosecuting body following investigations.
“This figure indicates that it is not all matters that prosecutors make a decision to prosecute after investigation and referral.
“The prosecutors come to the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence in a particular matter to proceed with prosecution,” said Rodney de Kock, the head of National Prosecution Services.
De Kock told the MPs that it should not be assumed that if there was a referral to the NPA, there would be automatic prosecution.
“This demonstrates the importance of thorough investigation being done, which is both in the public interest and part of the important mandate of prosecutors to be objective in terms of the evaluation of evidence.
“The work of the NPA must be unbiased, and we need to retain our objectivity at all costs to ensure justice is done at the end of the day in respect of all matters referred to the NPA,” he said.
He made the statement when he was briefing the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).
The briefing was the sequel to a meeting in December where the SIU briefed Scopa on its investigations into alleged corruption in the awarding of PPE contracts, at which it picked up suspected criminal actions.
SIU head Andy Mothibi asked at the time for Scopa to consider inviting the NPA to give a report on the matters they referred, after 20 new cases were referred to the NPA, bringing to 148 the cases referred since their briefing in September.
Yesterday, De Kock said there were 41 cases on the court rolls, 41 guilty pleas, 23 accused in court, eight warrants of arrests and two matters awaiting an NPA decision.
“The bulk of matters are under investigation, and currently there are two matters that are being attended to by the prosecutors for a decision,” he said.
De Kock’s presentation to Scopa showed that 13 matters were under consideration by the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) head office.
Although the bulk of cases handled by the Special Commercial Crimes Unit were in six provinces, the KwaZulu-Natal, Johannesburg and Eastern Cape divisions had the most SIU referrals, at 98, 80, 79 and 56 respectively. (*subs: E Cape has 2 divisions)
De Kock said the work was allocated to the best prosecutors who did commercial work in the courts.
“They get the best attention we have subject to the workload these prosecutors have … There are huge volumes of complex cases that are attended to by these prosecutors,” he said, adding that prosecutors were not just handling cases from the SIU.
“They work with the Independent Directorate and other law enforcement agencies,” he said.
De Kock said there were dedicated courts set up to deal with corruption and commercial work.
“Because of the volume of cases that come to the NPA, these court rolls become a challenge to manage because of the amount of cases in court.”
He said that when they started in April 2019, there were 369 corruption cases in court rolls, but the figure grew to 821 as at December 2021.
“These will be cases fully investigated and and decision will be made on whether or not to proceed.”
The presentation made to Scopa stated that cases often had to be closed without prosecution as witnesses or evidence were no longer available due to a lot of time having lapsed.
It said referrals of individuals connected to one matter were misleading, and difficult to follow up.
“SIU referral process of matters based on suspects rather than cases involving the finding of criminality create a misalignment in respect of the cases generated,” read the report. It said prosecutors and DPCI investigators dealt with facts contained in the case dockets.
The report said persons or identities identified in SIU referrals did not always emerge as suspects in the criminal investigations.
“In such instances, often no decision is made on such individuals or entities. Referrals related to different projects are often received months apart, and often include the same suspects or entities.”
De Kock said that while the SIU findings identified specific persons, subsequent investigations often revealed different people.
“There is a misalignment in the investigation. It is not straightforward. There is a lot of work needed to understand the work referred to us,” he said.
De Kock said that one of the proposed solutions was to involve the DPCI at an earlier stage of SIU investigations and amend the memorandum of understanding between the SIU and NPA to include the Hawks.
NPA head Shamila Batohi said there were a lot of challenges.
“South Africans are impatient in terms of the pace of the investigations and prosecutions. They lose faith and confidence in the criminal justice system,” she said.
“Despite these frustrations, it is important to take note of the progress being made,” Batohi said. “We only prosecute where there is sufficient evidence.”
She said it was important that the NPA and SIU drew on the strengths of their different mandates.
“We need to explain this so that people understand what happens during the SIU process,” Batohi said.
Political Bureau