Hawks, NPA urged to prosecute those implicated at Zondo commission

Cosatu has called on law enforcement authorities to declare 2020 the year in which those implicated at the Zondo Commission into State Capture will be arrested and prosecuted. Speaking to Independent Media on Tuesday, Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) should start working on pinning down those who have been exposed at the commission led by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo.

The intention for the Zondo commission, which is not a court of law, is to have the cases followed up as people need to account for money that had been stolen or wrongly received and it (the money) must be recovered. He said the law failed to act decisively against those accused of corruption last year.

“The intention of the commission is not just to expose what has happened. If all things that have been said under oath, there has to be an element of accountability,” said Ntshalintshali. He said the law enforcement authorities had to nab people who confessed to Justice Zondo for committed crimes either because they had been under instructions or to protect their jobs.

Ntshalintshali said he understood the National Prosecuting Authority’s statement that it did not want to rush to act on hearsay by bringing people to court only to fail to prove the cases. But that has been a long time, and now they have to investigate,” he said. President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the commission in August 2018 to investigate allegations of state capture, corruption and fraud.

Ntshalintshali said since its inception no prosecution had followed the evidence provided. NPA spokesperson Bulelwa Makeke said the Investigating Directorate, which is also known as the Hawks had started towards the end of last year to investigate, although she did not specify which cases she was referring to.