Allowing the Guptas to get away with Estina is a crime against beneficiaries

28 November 2018

The Democratic Alliance (DA) takes note of the decision by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to provisionally withdraw the case against the accused in the Estina matter.  The reasons provided on the decision to withdraw the matter are flimsy at best, and wholly unconvincing.

The DA will take it up with the current acting National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Dr. Silas Ramaite.   The NPA has no forensic accounting capacity, and never has had.   This function has always been outsourced to private companies, by the SAPS.  This is a function of SAPS.  State capture is a crime committed against the people of South Africa. The Estina matter is a particularly good example of the impact that this phenomenon has on the most vulnerable members of our society. The Gupta family and their associates still in the ANC parliamentary benches, in this instance, literally stole from the poor to give to the rich and line the pockets of those politically connected to the ANC.

Allowing those implicated to get away with this will be an even greater crime. It will send out the message that South Africa is a country in which there is no accountability for the powerful and connected political elite and no redress for those without the financial muscle to litigate alone.

The NPA is clearly in urgent need of a new direction and sound and independent leadership. The President is currently still mulling over who to appoint as the new NDPP and his deadline is drawing closer. With the recent revelation that was made concerning the President’s own connections to questionable characters in the Bosasagate scandal, even more rides on who will fill this position.

The DA has a plan to turn around our disintegrating justice system and hold those responsible for the capture of the state accountable. This includes introducing mandatory lifestyle audits for political office holders and ensuring that the use of public money is done in a transparent fashion.

South Africans deserve better than being robbed and then having to watch the thieves run off into the sunset while a leaderless NPA sits by and does nothing.

Issued by Glynnis Breytenbach, DA Shadow Minister of Justice, 29 November 2018