SA faces crises on many fronts, none of which can be resolved unless the economy grows and the state becomes more effective. The looting of public resources and inability of law enforcement agencies to protect the state from “the enemy within” — powerful people who use their positions for self-enrichment and patronage — make this impossible. The period of state capture was the epitome of this, but the same patterns continue today.
Society and the government cannot protect themselves without a vastly improved performance by the NPA, which has been at the centre of state capture. It has been gravely weakened by political interference since the 2009 closure of the Scorpions — a unit housed in the NPA that combined investigation and prosecution capacities, focused on high-level priority crimes.
Hopes were high when Shamila Batohi was appointed in December 2018. Six years later though, there is widespread dissatisfaction with the NPA’s performance under her stewardship. The NPA has a dismal record when it comes to initiating prosecutions and securing convictions in high-profile corruption cases. It has failed to prosecute a large number of major corruption cases long identified in forensic reports into the Passenger Rail Authority of SA (2017), Transnet and Eskom (2018) and the Zondo commission (2022).
In several instances these reports provided the NPA with a complete or near complete basis to issue an indictment, and where this was not so more than enough time has elapsed to have permitted the commencement of prosecutions. Nevertheless, not a single politician responsible for state capture has been successfully prosecuted. The NPA’s disappointing performance has failed to halt the spread of corruption. This has led to a pervasive sense of despair that the state cannot, or will not, enforce the law against powerful people.
There are a number of explanations for this lack of performance. Part of the problem lies with the Hawks. Established as an entity within the SA Police Service after lengthy litigation after civil society opposition to the Scorpions’ demise, the Hawks have proved a weak institution lacking capacity, independence and will. Other possible causes of the NPA’s poor performance include internal divisions, insufficient support from government, poor leadership, the lack of experienced prosecutors and resources.
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