This article first appeared in the 30 June 2022 edition of the Cape Argus newspaper.
Cape Town - The DA on Wednesday filed a formal complaint with the police, requesting that the ANC be “investigated for systemic and calculated racketeering activities over a multitude of years”.
DA Chief Whip Natasha Mazzone, accompanied by the party’s national spokesperson Cilliers Brink, visited the Cape Town Central Police Station to lodge the complaint.
They said they were there to present the police with what they said was more evidence, to supplement papers they had filed in 2019, with regard to state capture.
“We are laying charges against the entire organisation as a whole, and we name the national executive committee (NEC) and, particularly, former president Jacob Zuma, who was the head of the organisation at the time,” said Mazzone.
In March 2019, the DA wrote to National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi, requesting that the ANC be investigated for systemic and calculated fraud, racketeering, corruption, looting of public money and related offences over the past two decades.
Mazzone said: “More than three years later, the NPA has taken no visible action to investigate the ANC for these crimes. But now, we have the evidence procured by the Zondo Commission, justifying such an investigation and such a charge.”
She said that for the Zondo Commission to have any credibility in the eyes of ordinary South Africans, criminal charges, arrests and prosecutions must follow. On Monday, ActionSA president Herman Mashaba said he would be writing to Batohi, asking her to tell the country about progress being made in investigating those adversely mentioned in the Zondo Commission reports.
“I will be calling on advocate Batohi to lay criminal charges against those implicated in the report within seven 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,” said Mashaba.
He said if the National Prosecuting Authority did not prosecute any of the individuals named, the party would apply for a nolle prosequi certificate (an official decision declining to prosecute) from the State, and take up a private prosecution in the matter.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za