South African Communist Party

30 August 2019

Memorandum to the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation

The South African Communist Party (SACP) played a leading role in exposing corporate capture of our state (state capture). We were not alone. Many South Africans – both inside and outside our Alliance – who also saw the danger, joined in the pursuit to combat the corruption and ensure that those who were complicit in it are held to account. To this end together we achieved important advances. However, the advances against state capture are now faced with a concerted fightback. Networks that propped up the rogue operations to advance and defend the corruption of state capture remain active and continue to undermine our democracy. This seems very clear on many fronts.

The SACP is a signatory to the #DefendOurDemocracy and #HandsOffOurDemocracy Campaign initiated with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation together with other concerned South Africans and a number of public organisations. We are here today, as the signatories of the founding statement of the campaign and in our independent right, to demand decisive investigative and prosecutorial action against state capture. We are here to continue our campaign for all those who were complicit in the corruption to be held to account.

We strongly believe that those pursuing the concerted state capture fightback seek to subvert the processes underway to rebuild efficient and ethical governance, so that they may remain unaccountable. In part this is evidenced in the fact that the corruption of state capture took place as if state organs established in terms of our Constitution and the other law of the Republic to combat crime and corruption were non-existent. These include the Crime Intelligence, the Police, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), the Special Investigation Unit and the National Prosecuting Authority.

A thoroughgoing investigation on whether those who were assigned to perform the important crime and corruption combating roles in state organs were deliberately sleeping on duty or lulled to passivity is absolutely required. In either case, those directly responsible for the inaction on state capture and the underlying forces must be held to account. The Commission of Inquiry into State Capture has for instance heard that there were elements within the Hawks responsible for “killing” investigations into state capture associated corruption. This and other forms of criminal conduct as well as the passivity on state capture in our crime and corruption combating institutions must be dealt with decisively.

It is puzzling that no one has been held to account.

Meanwhile the effects of state capture and other forms of corruption have been laid bare: 

- The capacity of government to play its fundamental role, to meet the needs of all South Africans, has varyingly been weakened across the board.

- Our key public entities and institutions have been hollowed out of their strategic capacity and discipline; many were repurposed through governance decay as well as management and administrative malpractices to feed the interests of state capture. 

- The criminal justice system, particularly in areas of crime intelligence, investigation and prosecution, appeared to have been systematically corroded and more likely manipulated to not pay attention to the corruption of state capture and other malfeasance associated with it.

- Those who should have been paying millions of rands in taxes were aided by unscrupulous elements in institutions such as the South African Receiver of Revenue (SARS) to deprive our country of valuable revenue, as the Commission of Inquiry into Tax Administration and Governance by SARS has heard.

- Our state-owned enterprises have been rendered bankrupt or incapable of optimally delivering critical services.

- Good, honest public representatives and civil servants, who refused to do the bidding of corrupt masters, were pushed out of their positions. 

- Our economy was plunged into stagnation, partly because we are unable to attract significant investment, local and foreign, as a result of state capture.

- On the one hand unemployment has risen; now approximately 10.3 million South Africans are unemployed. Poverty and hunger have become commonplace. All these adversely impact the working class, while, on the other hand, those who benefitted from the proceeds of state capture are wallowing in ill-gotten gains.

In taking forward the fight against state capture, we:

1. Affirm our support for the work of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture;

2. Call upon the Hawks and the NPA to immediately take appropriate, decisive, investigative and prosecutorial action on the basis of the evidence available from this and other commissions of inquiry into corruption and associated repurposing of state institutions, including intelligence services.

3. Congratulate the National Director of Public Prosecutions Adv. Shamila Batohi for standing her ground in defence of the constitutional independence of the NPA;

4. Accordingly call for further measures against any attempt by any person at undermining, subordinating or usurping the independence of the NPA.

5. Call for the appointment of competent and ethical individuals in posts within the criminal justice system, including the Hawks and the NPA; and

6. Those complicit in state capture or other forms of corruption and crime to be held to account and removed from the criminal justice system.

7. Call for effective and adequate mechanisms to be put in place to protect whistleblowers within the criminal justice system.

Submitted on the behalf of the SACP by: Jacob Mamabolo

Position:       SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary

Signature:       _____________________________

Place:       City of Tshwane

Received on behalf of the NPA by: _____________________________

Position:       _____________________________

Signature:       _____________________________

Place:       _____________________________

---------  

Received on behalf of the Hawks by: _____________________________

Position:       _____________________________

Signature:       _____________________________

Place:       _____________________________

Issued by Jacob Mamabolo – SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary, 30 August 2019