It is not sufficient to only go after the kingpins. Every municipal official and mayor who has been accused of asking for kickbacks in exchange for depositing taxpayer money into VBS needs to face the music, writes Qaanitah Hunter.
When news broke on Wednesday that the alleged kingpins behind the looting and pillaging of VBS bank have been arrested, it was an indication that the wheels of justice were turning again.
It has been two years since the report into how more than R2 billion was stolen from a bank in broad daylight with the aid of political connections and finally, it seems like people will be held accountable.
National Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Shamila Batohi noted that the enormous public pressure for those responsible to be arrested was understandable.
“Believe me, I feel it,” she said of the pressure.
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She said the arrests of eight suspects on Wednesday was a big deal “given the pervasive culture of impunity that this country has sadly been accustomed to in recent times”.
Since her appointment two years ago, there has been renewed hope in the rebuilding of the criminal justice system which was systematically broken as looting and corruption became commonplace in the country.
“We are really determined to ensure that what people have termed probably the biggest bank robbery in this country that those who had anything to do with this is held accountable And so wherever the evidence takes us we will ensure that, you know, the rule of law prevails,” Batohi said.
If there’s any prosecution that South Africa’s criminal justice system has to nail it is the VBS matter. The punishment for stealing the money of the poorest of the poor should be nothing but orange overalls for politicians and businessmen alike.
As much as we try to be optimistic that the criminal justice system has turned a new leaf, one cannot forget the same public jubilation in February 2018 when there was a raid on the Gupta compound and there were subsequent arrests in relation to the Estina Dairy Farm case.
Both cases have the same hallmarks of manifest corruption and looting, aided and abetted by political connections.
This time around, both the Hawks and the NPA cannot mess this up.
“We do need to ensure we deliver on all fronts,” Batohi conceded.
While both Batohi and Hawks head General Godfrey Lebeya would not go into whether politicians will be apprehended for benefitting from the VBS loot, Lebeya did mention that the next phase of the investigation will look into municipalities.
And that is when things became interesting to me.
Last week, a barely-noticed response from Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola shook me to the core.
In the past 14 years- since 2006- only 67 municipal officials have been prosecuted for financial misconduct and of the 67, only nine have been convicted.
The bulk of those convicted come from one Eastern Cape municipality, Lamola revealed.
If that is not shocking enough, it was revealed that most of the convicted were sentenced to between two and five years’ imprisonment wholly and conditionally suspended for five years.
This is despite the fact that after every single financial year, the Auditor General raises red flags about financial misconduct all over the country.
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Last year, AG Kimi Makwetu revealed that for the 2017/2018 financial year, only 18 of the 257 municipalities in the country produced clean audits.
Fraud and corruption go unpunished in local government even though stealing from state coffers in municipalities directly affects the lives of the most vulnerable.
With only 9 people convicted of financial misconduct in 14 years, corrupt officials will continue to take chances – the odds of being caught and convicted look impossible.
You can abuse a government credit card, spend more than R1.7m on fast food and hotel stays and the worst outcome is a media report about it.
If there is a time to put an end to this type of impunity, the VBS prosecution provides for it.
We must not forget that fourteen municipalities lost R1.5bn in deposits into the bank all made in contravention of the law.
It is not sufficient to only go after the kingpins. Every municipal official and mayor who has been accused of asking for kickbacks in exchange for depositing taxpayer money into VBS needs to face the music.
This VBS prosecution has to be a deterrent for any official tempted to squander public funds with no consequences.
It cannot be another 14 years for nine more corrupt municipal officials to be held accountable.
The party has to be over for everyone.
– Qaanitah Hunter is the political editor of News24 and author of Balance of Power: Ramaphosa and the future of SA
