Pretoria - The head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Investigating Directorate (ID), Advocate Hermione Cronje, leaves her job without having successfully prosecuted a single case since the unit’s inception two and half years ago.
This emerged at a media briefing addressed by the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Advocate Shamilla Batohi, yesterday following Cronje’s resignation last week.
Batohi tried to paint a rosy picture of Cronje’s track record, saying she laid a solid foundation for the ID to build on by assembling a team of experienced investigators and securing the ID its own state-of-the art headquarters.
However, when asked whether Cronje successfully prosecuted any case, Batohi said: “What is a successful prosecution? A successful prosecution is charging people and taking a case to conclusion. So there is no case that has been concluded yet.”
Cronje, who resigned last week, was the founding head of the ID, which was set up by President Cyril Ramaphosa in April 2019 to focus on state capture corruption.
Responding to questions from journalists about Cronje’s track record, Batohi said the outgoing ID boss managed to enrol 18 cases. At least 70% of these 18 cases are criminal cases that are still being heard in court, while the rest relate to the asset forfeiture civil recovery matters, Batohi said.
She put the blame on the system and the criminal suspects allegedly using what she called “tactics” to delay cases, for the National Prosecuting Authority’s poor conviction rate.
“These matters are really complicated and the sad reality in the current climate is that accused persons will do everything possible – the so called ”Stalingrad tactic” to ensure that cases do not proceed to finality and that the State does not ever start leading the evidence on the merits of the case,” Batohi said.
“But we are acutely aware of the strategy and we are looking at empowering prosecutors to resist these attempts. But at the end of the day it’s decisions made by judges and magistrates and there is nothing we can do about that. What we can do is to have a strong strategy to be able to deal with these tactics and argue against cases being delayed.”
The Pretoria News recently reported that Cronje had been accused of packing her bags and leaving because she failed to crack cases despite allegedly blowing almost R400m on white lawyers from Cape Town whose mandate was to work on high-profile political cases. This is said to have caused tensions with her boss, Batohi, after Cronje allegedly requested more money to crack the cases.
Cronje’s spokesperson Sindisiwe Seboka, who failed to respond to specific questions when approached by the Pretoria News on Sunday, said yesterday: “The Investigating Directorate’s total budget is R106million.
However we have been accused of spending R400m on external counsel, additionally, we have only spent R1.6m this financial year to external counsel and forensic experts.”
However, Batohi downplayed the “tensions” yesterday, saying the relationship between her and Cronje was “work in progress”. However, she implied that the ID under Cronje initially failed to analyse cases better, had no clear focus and sought to tackle each and every case.
“We were moving toward that process of having the alignment strategy. It was work in progress.
“The ID was starting to analyse better, realising that we (NPA) could not do everything. So, if we don’t have clear priorities and be focused, it was always going to be difficult.”
Asked why Cronje was not part of the media briefing since she was still serving her three-month notice, Batohi said the briefing was an engagement between the media and the NPA executive committee.
“This is an engagement with the media and the exco of the NPA and so should explain why advocate Cronje is not here.”
Batohi also said that she had initially tried to persuade Cronje to stay in order to ensure continuity, but eventually had to give in to the idea of her vacating office.
“Adv Cronje had expressed an intention to leave. I did initially try to ask her to stay in the earlier phases, but we got to a point where I realised it would be in the best interest of everyone concerned that she does leave, and that is why I agreed to her vacation of office,” Batohi said.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on justice has summoned Batohi to face questions on Cronje’s departure in the National Assembly tomorrow.
She insists there is no crisis within the NPA.
“The NPA is not in a crisis and there is no widespread sabotage of the ID or any part of the NPA.”
Without getting into details, Batohi said “the incorrect narrative that her departure is because of interpersonal relations between me and her really makes for dramatic reporting.
“ We both have the best interests of the country at heart. Leadership transitions are normal and often healthy.”
Pretoria News