Batohi needs just one big rabbit

The only rival to President Cyril Ramaphosa in the national damp squib stakes is National Prosecuting Authority chief Shamila Batohi.

More than a year in office and there has yet to be a single prosecution of the any of the scores of people involved in looting R1 trillion during the lost decade of Jacob Zuma’s presidency. Public adulation has increasingly turned to public scorn.

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As with Ramaphosa, the man who appointed her as National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) and whose period in office she exactly mirrors, Batohi has been a disappointment. Like Ramaphosa, the high expectations that met her appointment had less to do with proven professional skills than enormous relief at the promise of a change from the incompetence and venality of their predecessors.

As with CR, the scepticism is growing, the hope fading. Unlike with CR, the disillusionment is not entirely justified.

To start with, unlike CR, Batohi is not tainted by a past and continuing association with the forces of criminal darkness that they confront.

Everyone who knows Batohi remarks upon her integrity, her ethics, and her commitment. CR, in contrast, sits down weekly, however uneasily, with some very shady characters.

And many of Batohi’s most pressing problems are beyond her remit to address.

The SA Police Service (Saps) has been reduced to a husk. Behind the Saps edifice, the sophisticated investigative skills required for intricate financial investigations of the kind involved in state  looting, no longer exists.

It’s important when assessing Batohi, to remember the NPA’s sordid history. Batohi inherited an NPA that was barely functional. Staff morale is low and she is surrounded by rotten apples from the Zuma years and many of the best people have long since decamped.

Even if Batohi had unlimited financial resources, the necessary skills are not easily acquired. It takes about 10 years of on-the-job training, to become a competent prosecutor.

As one former NPA staffer said to me: “To add to the pressure, the national appetite for revenge, for righting the wrongs of the Zuma era, is huge. They want rabbits out of hats but that’s just not possible.”

What about just one rabbit? One teeny bunny-wunny to slake our bloodlust?

No matter how unimpeachable Batohi’s principles, her strategy does come in for criticism.

Instead of spreading the risk with several large, simultaneous investigations, some argue for a sniper approach.

“Prosecutors, understandably, have an enormous fear of failure. But these are circumstances where one cannot play it safe. Rather take the risk and go for a big win.

“Concentrate all efforts onto one of the easier targets, such as the Estina dairy project. Just a single win will make a huge difference – and when the first domino falls, the NPA will be overwhelmed by smaller crooks wanting to buy immunity by ratting out the bigger ones.”

Such a strategy would have another payoff: it would renew hope for the future in a country which is dangerously bereft of it. There’s not a lot of time. If Ramaphosa is ousted, it is likely that Batohi’s position would be made untenable.

William Saunderson-Meyer.

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