State capture defeated but corruption far from over

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa

by SAVIOUS KWINIKA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) NEVER again will South Africa slump to the levels of corruption seen during the era of the so-called state capture.

That is the declaration by President Cyril Ramaphosa after last week marked the end of the scheduled hearings of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

This came more than 1 000 days after the first witness testimony was heard at the panel led by Judge Raymond Zondo.

Ramaphosa last week Wednesday and Thursday appeared before the commission in his capacity as the President and former Deputy President of South Africa.

“And it is up to all of us to ensure that these practices are never allowed to happen again,” he said.

The president said over the past three years, government had taken several important steps to tackle corruption and state capture.

He said the administration was rebuilding bodies like the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the South African Police Service (SAPS), the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and others.

It has set up new structures like the Investigating Directorate in the NPA to prosecute high-level corruption and the Special Tribunal to recover stolen public funds.

Government has improved crime-fighting capacity through the establishment of the Fusion Centre, which brings together various law enforcement agencies to share information and coordinate the investigation and prosecution of crime.

“We have changed the leadership at several strategic state-owned enterprises, and begun the process of restoring them to financial and operational health,” Ramaphosa stated on Monday.

“Much of this work is ongoing,” he stated.

“There are areas where progress has been far slower than we would have hoped, and these are now receiving closer attention,” Ramaphosa said,

The president said while the era of state capture was over, he argued corruption had not been defeated.

“Fraud and corruption remains pervasive and deeply entrenched in both the public and private sectors,” he said.

State capture is defined a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage.

In South Africa, it was perpetrated by the Gupta family.

– CAJ News

 

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