The National Director of Public Prosecutions, advocate Shamila Batohi. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane / African News AGency (ANA)
Despite the excitement on social media, the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) has debunked posts purporting the ‘imminent arrests of state capture accused’, as ‘fake news’.
The National Director of Public Prosecutions, advocate Shamila Batohi, warned that there were fake news reports posted on X, formerly Twitter, alluding this.
According to the report, NDPP had allegedly announced that the “imminent arrests of state capture accused” were on hand, however, the prosecuting authority has denied this.
In fact, the NDPP stressed that it did not make announcements regarding any arrests.
The State Capture Commission conducted formal hearings for more than 400 days with over 300 witnesses testifying.
Although the commission held its first public hearing on August 20, 2018, Justice Raymond Zondo was only able to peruse the mountain of evidence and formally handover the first part of the report to President Cyril Ramaphosa four years later on January 4, 2022; part two was handed over on February 1, 2022; and part three on March 1, 2022; and part four on April 29 2022. Zondo delivered the fifth and sixth reports to the president on June 22, 2022.
The evidence gathered implicated approximately 1 438 persons, however, despite assurances by President Cyril Ramaphosa even as late as last month that there would be more arrests arising out of the Zondo Commission report into State Capture, none have been made to date, leaving many people frustrated.
@MandlaMkhwana13 wrote: “Can we, please, as RSA learn from Singapore and root out corruption, simply put - nip it in the bud! Advocate Shamila Batohi (NDPP) pls move faster to charge & prosecute all those who engineered & operationalised State-Capture. Let’s build a corruption-free SA.”
Tweeted @goolammv: “On Friday it will be a full year since Shamila Batohi was appointed head of NDPP. All we hear from her office is complaints about a lack of resources and the massive extent of state capture, but not one person arrested. Her office has a budget of R500 million.”
The Star
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