Members of Parliament on Wednesday suggested to government’s Anti-Corruption Task Team that is was making a mockery of its mandate after Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) head Berning Ntlemeza struggled to explain how it worked or what it has achieved.
“It seems to be that this work is not being treated very seriously,” ANC MP Nyami Booi said, as a delegation of 23 officials from the ACTT appeared before the watchdog standing committee on public accounts.
“The mandate given by the constitution is quite serious. Now this is shocking when a whole team of officials in government does not take this very seriously.”
He made the remark after Ntlemeza and Nomgcobo Jiba, the Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions, conceded that the monthly meetings of the tranversal graft-fighting team established in 2010 was not attended by director-generals, but by lower ranking officials.
As MPs sounded their disapproval, Jiba said this should not be seen as a weakness because deputy director generals and executive directors were better placed as they had more direct insight into the alleged instances of corruption brought before the task team.
“It is the people who are dealing with the core of what we are dealing with.”
She was castigated again by the ANC’s Vincent Smith who said the ACTT’s admission that of 189 cases handled, it had finalised only 68, meant it had managed to do just more than a third of its work. It was working on 77 cases and there 44 serious corruption cases before court.
“You have only gone through 36 percent of your workload. I would have expected that out of 189 cases since your inception it would be higher than that. What this says to me is that if I have contacts or money I can stay out of jail forever.”
Jiba responded that it was not unusual for cases to take years as people charged with corruption on a grand scale were adept at dragging them out.
“These cases are highly litigated.”
She conceded that in addition there was a tendency for prosecutors and investigators to shy away from complex cases in favour of those they knew they could wrap up quickly, adding that this was “human nature”.
Jiba said the task team had secured 128 convictions. However, it would have to convict 601 more by 2019 to achieve its set target.
Jiba asked to be allowed to respond to questions after Ntlemeza failed to be clear on what happened at the task team’s monthly meetings and which government entities were represented at these, as well as whether investigations extended to wrongdoing at state-owned entities.
Committee chairman Temba Godi implored: “Give us an indication that you are taking your task seriously… that it is not just empty rhetoric.”
Ntlemeza said the ACTT were investigating allegations of corruption at Eskom, Prasa and Denel and it would submit a list of all its investigations to the committee by next Wednesday. However, the Hawks demurred when Godi asked whether this would present full details on each case, saying this was impossible as some of the probes were “at a sensitive stage”.
They volunteered that their caseload had a cumulative value of R10 billion and involved 460 officials, but that it might “not be achievable” to recover the full sum in state funds lost to graft.
Godi commented: “So the achievable might be a lot less.”
Questioned on the nature of the cases, the Hawks said that the task team tended to focus mainly on fraud and corruption, and less on transgressions of the Public Finance Management Act.
This drew another rebuke from Smith, who said: “You are watering down the most important law governing public finances.
“To come to Parliament and say you don’t consider the PMFA, is a serious problem for Scopa. So I think you must go and reconsider. We want to hold managers accountable and the only weapon we have is the PMFA.”
The Hawks are responsible for deciding which cases the task team will deal with and the NPA for prosecutions.
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