Questions with Makhosini Nkosi [Sunday Times, 2006-12-31]

Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2006-12-31 Reporter: Chris Barron

Questions with Makhosini Nkosi

Publication	Sunday Times
Date	2006-12-31
Reporter	Chris Barron
Web Link	www.sundaytimes.co.za

Makhosini Nkosi, the high-profile spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, has announced that he will quit. Chris Barron asked him ...

Why?

My contract came to an end.

Why aren’t you renewing it?

Three and a half years in a position is rather a long time, particularly a job as intense and demanding as this one.

What’s the real reason?

Having been the face of the NPA, and the NPA coming under as much attack as it has, pressure was put to bear on me and my family. I live and work in a fairly secure environment, so not many people have access to me. But they do have access to my family, my mother, my father and my siblings, who live and work within communities. So everything that people would like to say to me, they say to them instead.

Have they been threatened?

They’ve been harassed. My father, who lives in Pongola [in KwaZulu-Natal] has been harassed by people saying to him that he must tell me to stop persecuting [Jacob] Zuma, for instance. My mother, who lives in Katlehong [on the East Rand] has been told by a number of people that she should tell me to leave this job because it is dangerous and I could get killed.

Do you hold Jacob Zuma responsible for the behaviour of his supporters?

I would have expected him to perhaps discourage the people who support him from some of the things that they say and do.

Why did it take so long for the NPA to get its ducks in a row with regard to Zuma?

It’s a matter of public record that, on the stand, [Zuma’s financial adviser] Schabir Shaik said payments continued up to and including 2005. The NPA was of the view that those payments had to be investigated, hence the search-and-seizure operations that took place in 2005. Those operations were then challenged to the point that on July 31 [2006], the first day of trial, the state was not sure which evidence it could use and which evidence it couldn’t.

Why didn’t the NPA make sure that it was acting legally in seizing the documents?

The issue is the interpretation of the [NPA] Act. It’s up to an individual judge to decide whether the warrants were lawful or not. We’ve had three judgments on this. Two found the warrants to have been unlawful, and one found them to have been lawful.

Do you expect the NPA to take its case against Zuma to court again?

The decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal tomorrow could very well be an indicator as to which direction the NPA will go. If it sets aside the conviction against Shaik, it would be extremely difficult for the NPA to mount any case against Jacob Zuma. If it upholds the conviction, then I think it’s obvious to anybody what that would mean for the NPA.

Does the NPA have sufficient capacity to do its job properly?

When the Directorate of Special Operations, the Scorpions, was envisaged, it was envisaged that they would have a staff complement of 2000 people. They’re sitting at around 500. But the bigger problem is that I don’t think the NPA is being given space to do its work to the best of its abilities. There is a lot of undue pressure placed on the organisation, unfair and in some instances malicious attacks. And it’s worrying for me that no one outside of the NPA is standing up to defend it.

Like?

First of all, I would expect Parliament to protect the NPA. The NPA is the creation of legislation that was created in Parliament. It’s a state organ. I don’t think it’s acceptable to have a situation where the NPA is under constant attack and you’re not hearing anything from Parliament.

Is the NPA pretty demoralised?

I wouldn’t say demoralised, but the attacks do have an impact on the individual morale of people who work for the NPA.

Has this impaired their ability to do their jobs properly?

I think we should avoid a situation where those attacks are escalated to the point where they begin to impair their ability to do their work. If you have people who are considered to be political leaders and community leaders standing up on public platforms day in and day out attacking the NPA, it can even discourage university graduates who want to become prosecutors.

Any evidence it has?

I’m not saying there is evidence it has done that, I’m saying there is the potential for that to happen. And I don’t think we should wait until it does before doing something about it.

With acknowledgements to Chris Barron and Sunday Times.

One of the biggest impairments to the ability of the NPA to do its work properly is the conduct and its legacy of the two biggest jackasses in the history of the NPA and indeed the history of South African jurisprudence, these being no less than the National Director of the NPA, Adv Bulelani Ngcuka and its political head, the Minister of Justice, Dr Penuell Maduna LlD.

These two legal donkeys did no less than :

fail to conduct searches and seizures during the critical 1999 - 2000 period in respect of prima facie evidence of corruption by Jacob Zuma, on the pretext that this was politically sensitive;
accepted the advice of some nameless senior counsel that the evidence against Jacob Zuma was not strong enough for the NPA to win a corruption case in court (this is doubtful on two counts: as both the High Court and SCA found, the evidence against all of the three co-conspirators was very, very strong; secondly, unless the senior counsel can be identified, it is doubtful that he or she actually exists);
interfered with the efforts of the DSO investigation team by liaising directly with the superiors of the French counterparts of the investigation team to the detriment of both the investigation itself and the co-operation by the French in bringing the French co-conspirators to book in both South Africa and France;
made an inexplicable deal with Thomson-CSF and Alain Thetard to withdraw prosecution of them both in exchange for a pathetic affidavit acknowledging Thetard's authorship of the executive statement, but not clarifying precisely the meaning and intention of the executive statement, thereby allowing Thetard to supersede his affidavit with another disavowing the otherwise clear meaning of the content;
met privately with legal representatives of Thomson-CSF and Thetard to broker these unpalatable deals;
gave "off-the-record" briefings to the media thereby completely muddying the waters of a regular investigation and indictment;
flew to London to meet with the head of Thomson-CSF International, Jean-Paul Perrier, at Thomson-CSF's expense to discuss ways for them to escape South African justice (Perrier should have been in the dock along with Alain Thetard on personal charges of corruption);
accepted payment from Thomson-CSF of professional fees as an attorney and director of one of South Africa's bigger law firms to assist Thomson-CSF escape charges of corruption;
signed off the Joint Investigation Report into the Arms Deal with the inclusion of a key finding that neither the Government nor Cabinet was involved in any way in any irregularity in the procurement process, this after being instruction by the President and three ministers to include such a statement; and
providing a formal recommendation to the President not to include the Special Investigation Unit in the Arms Deal joint investigation team and to remove its head.

With bosses like these, does the NPA need enemies to prevent it from doing its work properly?

It's a skande - when is something going to be done about it.

That time is now.