ActionSA Announces Legal Steps on Zondo Report, Calls for Policy on Special Tribunal

South Africans have had to ensure the exploration of the depths of corruption and complete moral breakdown in our government through the State Capture Commission of Enquiry. Nearly 4 years, over 5000 pages and more than R1 billion went into this painful but necessary exercise.

Our ActionSA policy teams, beginning the work of building our national policy suite for 2024, are specifically looking at legal mechanisms to include the establishment of a Special Tribunal – a body that we will set up for the exclusive purpose of identifying cases of corruption that have not been investigated and pursued.

In the meantime, ActionSA will fight for the hopes of all South Africans that this process will produce concrete outcomes. Given the absolute failure of accountability, a key finding in the process itself, we are proud to announce the following steps that we will undertake:

• I will be writing to the National Director of Prosecutions, Shamila Batohi, to take the nation into her confidence about progress being made in these cases. Some of these matters were ventilated years ago, affording the NPA the chance to act. Batohi must prioritise public confidence over secrecy and announce the steps that will be taken by the NPA following the Report’s publication as a matter of urgency. Her silence has been defeaning and must end.

• I will be calling on Adv Batohi to lay criminal charges against those implicated in the Report within 7 business days. If she is incapable of doing so, then I, Herman Mashaba, as President of ActionSA but first and foremost as a citizen of this country, will personally lay criminal charges against those named in the report;

• In the event that the NPA delays in the prosecution of any of the individuals named in the Report, we will apply for a nolle prosequi certificate from the State (an official decision declining to prosecute). Once we are in receipt of same, we will commence with any necessary private prosecution ourselves.

ActionSA communicated these steps because our criminal justice system has, over time, revealed its failure to investigate, prosecute and jail corrupt ANC politicians. However, South Africans are increasingly coming to terms with the idea that corruption will only be beaten when the ANC is in opposition.

In this regard, the work of the Special Tribunal proposed by ActionSA after the removal of the ANC in 2024 will have the sole focus of identifying cases of government corruption, seeing to the finalisation of the investigations, prosecuting, and jailing the corrupt. It will be measured in these absolute deliverables.

What the war on corruption needs is serious actions. Nothing short of arrests, prosecutions and jailing will give meaning to the State Capture Commission of Enquiry and any delay in this process must be rejected by all South Africans.