Progress report says R5.4bn in state capture funds recovered

• The president has referred 202 recommendations from the commission for investigation

The state has recovered R5.4bn, including R2.9bn in cash, out of an estimated R57bn worth of funds that were stolen during the state capture era, the presidency said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office on Wednesday released a progress report on the government’s move to implement the recommendations of the state capture commission of inquiry, which released its final report in 2022.

“The SA Revenue Service has also acted against people named in the commission’s report and collected R4.8bn in unpaid taxes in the 2022/23 financial year as a result of evidence presented at the commission,” the presidency said.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has frozen R14.18bn of assets in cases related to state capture.

The president has referred 202 recommendations from the commission for criminal and other investigations, and possible prosecution to law enforcement agencies and other regulatory bodies, such as the SA Institute for Chartered Accountants and the Legal Practice Council.

These include the R400m corruption case which implicates former Transnet CEO Brian Molefe and other former Transnet executives, the Free State asbestos case which implicates former premier Ace Magashule and the multimillion-rand Bosasa corruption case in which six people are on trial including a former COO of Bosasa, Angelo

Agrizzi, and Vincent Smith, former MP and the erstwhile chair of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

“Cases for delinquency proceedings against 73 former directors of state-owned enterprises implicated in evidence presented to the State Capture Commission have been compiled by the department of public enterprises (DPE) and are expected to be concluded by December 2023,” the report said.

Moses Mokoena, former head of the human settlements departments in the Free State, was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for corruption and five years for contravention of the Public Finance Management Act in November 2021, but these were wholly suspended after he pleaded guilty.

“Mokoena was found guilty of failing to prevent the unauthorised, wasteful and irregular expenditure of at least R500m related to the building of RDP houses in the province in 2010. The sentence was wholly suspended on condition that Mokoena was not found guilty of similar offences during the period of suspension,” the report said.

Though the report lauds the government’s efforts to recover stolen money and ensure the perpetrators are brought to book, the state has often been left with egg on its face as several high-profile cases floundered.

The NPA has been criticised for its inept handling of statecapture cases, and was left bruised over its unsuccessful extradition of the Gupta brothers from the United Arab Emirates in 2022.

The brothers, friends of former president Jacob Zuma who used their proximity to senior government officials to score tenders and deals worth billions, fled the country after being charged with fraud, corruption and money laundering. They were arrested in June 2022 in Dubai after Interpol issued red notices. They are yet to be brought to SA to face justice.

Last week, the Investigating Directorate (ID) of the NPA blamed a shortage of specialised forensic accountants, auditors and financial investigators in its ranks for court defeats in state capture cases.

This was after the Middelburg specialised commercial crimes court struck former Eskom boss Matshela Koko’s R2.2bn fraud, corruption and money-laundering case off the roll due to unreasonable delays.

In May, the ID filed an application for leave to appeal after its loss in the first state capture trial, citing “gross irregularity” after the court discharged the accused.

The case involved corruption charges the NPA brought against several officials from the Free State department of agriculture, accusing them and others of paying almost R25m to Guptalinked company Nulane Investments for a study related to the infamous Vrede dairy farm project.

This project was meant to empower black farmers, but they were sidelined when the money went to people with alleged ties to the Guptas. The NPA failed to show the accused worked together to siphon money for corrupt ends through the agriculture project.

ID head Andrea Johnson briefed the Scopa in parliament last Wednesday, saying the directorate faces “institutional impediments” relating to its nonpermanence, and depended on secondment of personnel from other law enforcement agencies for its criminal probes.

She said there were not enough skilled, capable investigators and prosecutors equal to the scale and scope of investigations the ID had to deal with, and there was a shortage of specialised forensic accountants, auditors and financial investigators, as well as digital forensic and data analysts.

“There is critical evidential material that is not retained by many government institutions and that has also become a challenge in terms of evidence and presenting these matters in court as these departments do not have original documentation,” Johnson said .