Scotch Tagwireyi
The Directorate of Serious Economic Offences has decided to prosecute its own cases as directors of public prosecutions have failed to bring many of their investigations to court, some of them dating back to 1993.
Jan Swanepoel, director of investigations at the Directorate of Serious Economic Offences, says he believes the delay is due to a lack of staff in the Directorate of Public Prosecutions. “We have now started to prosecute some of our own cases.
“We take someone who is not intimately involved with the case to prosecute. We are very careful, we don’t want cases where our prosecutors become witness to cases.”
The Directorate of Serious Economic Offences has about 20 investigations they completed before 1997 and handed over for prosecution which have not yet reached court. They involve several million rands.
One example is a fraud case involving Armscor which was submitted to the Transvaal Directorate of Public Prosecutions in October 1997 which has still not been dealt with.
Armscor allegedly sold 17 SA33 LL helicopters to a Romanian firm, IAR SA Brasove, for about R30-million through agencies who were paid almost half the money in commission.
“The agencies involved had nothing to do with arms, they had no knowledge of arms,” says advocate Wilma Gernindt of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in Transvaal who is working on the case.
Gernindt said no one has been prosecuted because these kinds of cases are not given priority. “I deal with many cases, including murders – cases where people involved are in prison – and I have to give priority to those cases. In this one no one is in prison. However, I hope we will be able to take it to court before the end of the year.” She adds that she has no one to help her investigate the case.
Another example is the case of the Cape Joint Municipal Pension Fund, which was handed over in July 1993 to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in Cape Town. The case involves a council official who allegedly illegally invested millions of pension funds.
The Tollgate case, which involves alleged fraud of millions of rands in the late 1980s and early 1990s by directors of the Tollgate group, was submitted in Cape Town in June 1995. No decision has yet been taken whether any person should be prosecuted.
According to the deputy director of public prosecutions in Cape Town, Jan Gerber, the reason why prosecutions are taking so long is resignations. “One advocate works on a case for a few months and then she or he resigns before compiling a charge, the new advocate will have to start all over again,” says Gerber.
He adds that there is also a shortage of staff in Cape Town to deal with commercial cases.
The deputy director of public prosecutions in the Transvaal, Byron Bredenkamp, says staff shortages are not a problem at the moment.
But he agrees that the main cause of the delays in prosecuting commercial cases is that people resign while working on a case. “I have one case, which has been dealt with by three advocates already, and the case is still not yet finished,” he says.
@Swazi prosecutor considers more press charges
Mail & Guardian reporter
More Swazi journalists could be charged with defamation as the country’s government prepares new legislation to curb how much newspapers are allowed to publish.
The Director of Public Prosecutions in Swaziland, Lincoln Ng’arua, says his office is considering pressing charges against more staff members of The Times of Swaziland for allegedly publishing defamatory articles about Senteni Masango, the newest wife of King Mswati III.
Ng’arua said he might decide to also charge the publisher jointly with The Times’s Sunday editor, Bheki Makhubu, and other staffers who might have published such articles.
Ng’arua added that his office could also revisit any other publications by the Times group of newspapers to find out if there were any other defamatory articles against the king.
Makhubu was released from police custody on Monday shortly after posting bail of R3 000. He was charged with two counts of “publishing defamatory libel” stemming from articles which appeared in the September 12 and 19 editions of The Times on Sunday.
Both articles referred to Masango as a high school drop-out. Makhubu’s trial was set for October 4.
In arguments before the court, lawyers for the state indicated that in addition to the charges of defamation, they would allege aggravating circumstances against Makhubu. He had made no apology despite protests from many quarters, the defamation was widely published and it was aimed at bringing the royal household into disrepute.
They also argued the defamation was of an extraordinary nature and was of such a magnitude as to be regarded as an offence against the community as well as against the individual.
An offence of “publishing defamatory libel” apparently does not exist on the Swazi statute books, while South African law, which is also used by the Swazi courts, only stipulates a charge of defamation.
The Swazi Prime Minister, Sibusiso Dlamini, has indicated, however, that the law being used in this case was old and dates back to the colonial era.
Addressing a media conference on Monday, he admitted that most people were not aware that such a law existed. Responding to questions about whether the arrest and charging of Makhubu challenged press freedom in the kingdom, Dlamini said the matter was not a press freedom issue as there were no laws in the country limiting press freedom and that no journalists were in jail because of their views.
He added, though, that Swaziland, like any other country, was concerned about the media invasion of the privacy of public figures. He further stressed that the reports carried in The Times about Senteni were an offence because they were disrespectful of the king.
Swaziland’s ad hoc committee on the Media Council Bill, made up of various media and civil society representatives in Swaziland, has criticised the Minister of Public Service and Information, Magwagwa Mdluli, for going ahead with plans to redraft the Media Council Bill and draft new legislation covering defamation.
The Bill, which was mooted in late 1997, contains harsh sanctions against journalists contravening a proposed government-imposed code of ethics and media council.
Following a huge outcry, both locally and internationally, the Bill was thrown out of Parliament and handed to a select committee for further consultation.
Makhubu has been suspended as editor of The Times on Sunday. Publication of the paper has also ceased, apparently because of plans to restructure it.
On September 23, The Times general manager Pat Nxumalo and the director of the Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services, Tars Makama, were summoned to appear before elders at the main royal residence at Ludzidzini.
During the meeting, which was held behind closed doors, the governor of Ludzidzini, Dibanisa Mavuso, reportedly sternly warned the media representatives to respect the monarchy.
Mavuso said a lady who had been chosen by the king should not be defamed or described negatively. He urged journalists to show respect at all times because it was their duty to promote peace in the country. He added that the rule of law would take its course in future if such negative reporting continued.
Nxumalo said afterwards his newspaper would exercise respect towards the king as suggested by the elders during the meeting.
He added press freedom did exist in the kingdom, despite the fact that media chiefs were sometimes summoned to explain certain articles or broadcasts.