By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Ronald Lamola says the National Prosecuting Authority Asset Forfeiture Unit (NPA AFU) has recovered billions of rands stolen from the state.
Lamola was speaking during the opening of the Association of African Anti-Corruption Authorities’ (AAACA) 6th General Assembly in Gauteng on Monday.
“The finalisation of two high-value corruption cases has contributed to the AFU recovering R2.83 billion in corruption and related matters during the financial year, and a total of R10.2 billion has been frozen over the past four years. In state capture cases alone, the NPA has recovered R2.55 billion.
“Over the past four years, we have seen 13 new investigations, totalling 97 matters. The previous year, the NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) secured freezing orders worth R570 million to recover the stolen monies from the corrupt and those who facilitated state capture.
“The Special Investigating Unit and the Special Commercial Crimes Unit’s collaboration is essential in fighting money laundering and illicit financial flows. This led to the finalisation of 364 cases in the last financial year and a conviction rate of 87.6%,” he said.
The Minister said the department is hard at work implementing plans to strengthen the fight against corruption in the public sector.
“Firstly, we are looking at various measures to enhance the efficacy of our whistle-blowing framework and ensure that whistle-blowers are adequately protected.
“Secondly, we have set up a National Council Anti-Corruption Advisory Council…to advise the government on the critical preventative measures, institutional capabilities and resources that are required to curb a recurrence of state capture proactively and to prevent fraud and corruption in South Africa.
“Thirdly, we are currently busy with inter-departmental consultations to strengthen our Investigative Directorate within the National Prosecuting Authority to enable it to have dedicated capacity to resolve cases identified by the judicial commission,” he said.
Lamola said in the context of The Corruption Perceptions Index – which ranks countries based on public sector corruption – countries on the continent are facing challenges in the battle against the scourge.
Meanwhile more than 340 000 thousand people who earned themselves criminal records by breaching Covid-19 lockdown regulations between March 2020 and January 2021 could have their names cleared soon thanks to the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill.
Lamola submitted the Bill for consideration by Parliament in March.
Among its aims is to: “Provide for the expungement of the criminal record of a person who is deemed to have been convicted and sentenced in respect of an offence contemplated in any regulations that have been made in terms of Section 27(2) of the Disaster Management Act, 2002, in respect of which an admission of guilt fine has been paid or [the person has] appeared in court in terms of a summons or written notice.”