Crime is to a large extent out of control, says Neal Froneman, outgoing CEO of multinational mining group Sibanye-Stillwater and the chair of Business Against Crime (BAC).
“Whether South Africa has become a mafia state is an open question, but BAC is doing everything it can within its legal powers to prevent it,” Froneman says.
Within law enforcement agencies “you have bad leaders and serious mismanagement”.
“You generally find that when you work with people below leadership positions that they are capable and competent. They just haven’t been led properly.”
This applies to the whole criminal justice system, says Froneman, who will remain in charge of BAC after his retirement from Sibanye this month.
“When we move below the political levels, we find competence and people who are generally honest and working very hard to achieve what we’re all trying to achieve as South Africans. But they’ve been constrained by a lack of proper leadership.”
Business has the resources, the capital, the expertise and the desire to improve the quality of leadership, but it has to work within and through institutions controlled by the government. “So you have to establish relationships and build trust.”
BAC has been working on this for a while. When do we start seeing tangible results?
“We’ve established very good and credible relationships with our peers in the National Prosecuting Authority, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation [Hawks], and in the criminal justice system.”
The most important progress so far has been with trying to end the Financial Action Task Force greylisting of South Africa. It is still in place but “we are making progress”.
“We’ve been able to demonstrate progress on factual issues and build capacity within the system to address money laundering, terrorist financing and so on. We wish it could have happened quicker, but it is happening.”
He doesn’t think the ground-shaking allegations by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi of high-level political and law enforcement collusion with crime syndicates, now being tested by the Madlanga commission, have changed this hopeful scenario.
Unless there is a proper turnaround, proper action, I think the local government elections are going to signal a new era
— Neal Froneman, outgoing CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater and chair of Business Against Crime
“Of course it was a very disruptive event because we had a good working relationship with the police minister” — Senzo Mchunu, who is now on leave of absence — “but we now have a commission, which I hope will identify where there are rotten apples so we can move forward with leadership being changed, if that’s what is necessary.”
BAC has been working closely with the police and Mchunu but it had no inkling of anything irregular going on, Froneman says.
“We don’t have specialist knowledge. We get privileged information and are very, very careful not to cross any line that could create a conflict of interest situation.
“We were working very well with the minister. Our role in helping him modernise the police was focused on technology and digitalising processes. If there was anything untoward happening at deep, mafia-type levels, we don’t have that type of exposure.”
BAC was even aware that the political killings unit had been disbanded, let alone that the minister himself ordered it. “That’s not our focus area in terms of providing skills and other inputs into the criminal justice system. We don’t have investigative powers.”
So how much can BAC actually do within the law to disrupt criminal syndicates?
“Business can do a lot, but it can do much more when it works with our partners in government.”
How disturbing is it to discover that these partners and the minister himself may be complicit in these syndicates?
“It’s very, very disturbing, but we should wait for the outcome of the Madlanga commission. We found him [Mchunu] to be someone who was efficient and focused, prioritised what the issues were and shared with business where he needed help,” Froneman says.
“We were working very constructively with him on those issues. None of my team picked up anything that was untoward. But we don’t go in as investigators looking at things like the disbandment of a political killings unit.”
Was Mchunu’s failure to follow through on the memorandum of understanding he signed more than a year ago to bolster the fight against criminal syndicates not a red flag?
“I can tell you the things he was involved in with us, he followed through. Much more than the previous police minister [Bheki Cele], who kept us at bay and wouldn’t allow us to be involved.
“I don’t want to defend him on this because I don’t know if he’s a good broker or a bad broker, but I don’t think he had time to implement it in a very complex political environment.”
Dealing with violent crime is not within BAC’s ambit, he says, but projects to boost the NPA’s forensic laboratory and data analysis capacity are up and running.
“The digital evidence unit we built is focused on corruption within government, and more specifically the Zondo commission, and what is required for state capture prosecutions,” Froneman says.
He says business is pushing “all the time” for a new chapter 9 anti-corruption entity that is independent of political control.
“As always, politics gets in the way. We meet with very senior people in government and share our views, but we can’t force their hand. It’s not an independence issue that is holding the NPA back, it’s the complexity of these state capture crimes. And that’s where we’ve applied a solution to get some results.”
Meanwhile “very significant capital flight” is happening, directly related to perceptions that South Africa is becoming a mafia state.
“All I can say is, whether it’s crime and corruption, or running municipalities, or anything else, I just see a government incapable of implementing anything, never mind dealing with crime and corruption.”
He says BAC will hold the government to account to implement the Madlanga recommendations speedily.
Could this be where business finally draws a line?
“Absolutely. Civil society is drawing that line in the sand right now. Unless there is a proper turnaround, proper action, specifically from the ANC, I think the local government elections are going to signal a new era.”
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