President Cyril Ramaphosa took a strong stance in his third state of the nation address (Sona) on Thursday evening on the need to recover public money that was stolen through corruption.
Ramaphosa said the government was committed to building an ethical state in which “there is no place for corruption, patronage, rent-seeking and plundering of public money”.
Fighting corruption has been one of the key elements of his presidency, in which critical steps have been taken to address the defects in the criminal justice system, which was decimated and politicised under the leadership of former president Jacob Zuma.
Ramaphosa, who had announced key decisions during the two previous Sonas related to the security cluster, said steps had been taken to end state capture and fight corruption. He said on Thursday that measures to strengthen the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), the SA Revenue Service and in state security, were achieving important results.
Ramaphosa, however, acknowledged that much more needed to be done, and that national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi had been asked to “develop a plan to significantly increase the capacity and effectiveness of the NPA, including to ensure effective asset forfeiture”.
“We need to ensure that public money stolen is returned and used to deliver services and much needed basic infrastructure to the poorest communities,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa said it was expected that the new SIU special tribunal, which he announced in February, would start its work within the next few months to fast track civil claims arising from SIU investigations, which are currently estimated to be at about R14.7bn.
In February, the presidency said the establishment of the special tribunal was occasioned by the need to fast track the finalisation of matters that the SIU refers to civil litigation following the conclusion of their investigations. These were cases where the SIU would have referred contracts entered into by state institutions for civil litigation to have them declared irregular, invalid or set aside.
LISTEN: The State of the Nation address in full
The presidency said fast tracking the matters through the special tribunal would enable the SIU to recover monies or assets lost by state institutions through irregular and corrupt means, “thus ensuring those responsible for the loss of monies and or assets by state institutions are held accountable”.
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