Corporate companies have also played role in state capture, says NPA’s Hermione Cronje

While there is a demand that politicians be brought to book for their role in state capture, it is also worthy to point out that corporate companies have also played a role.

And everyone involved eventually had to pay for the crimes, National Prosecuting Authority Head of Investigative Directorate Hermoine Cronje said.

Cronje was part of an online panel discussion hosted by social justice organisation, Open Secrets and Financial Mail on Thursday.

Titled Is it time for justice for apartheid economic crime?, panellists included human rights lawyer and former Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) commissioner Yasmin Sooka, Open Secrets director Hennie Van Vuuren and the organisation’s legal researcher, Tabitha Paine.

During the discussion, the organisation announced it submitted a docket to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) this week, setting out the roles of Belgian and Luxembourg banks Kredietbank (KBC) and Quintet Bank (KBL) in the alleged sale of arms to the apartheid regime.

Speaking at the online discussion, Cronje said: “There is much public demand that we address politicians for the role they have played in state capture, but equally, a lot of these crimes were facilitated by corporates who received tenders and agreed to pay kickbacks.

“That’s the simple model that’s facilitating the environment in the state to award tenders. Somebody has got to pay for that, and it’s the big corporates with deep pockets…”

She added that when delving deep into crimes, one eventually recognised the involvement of corporates on all fronts of transactions.

Sooka said there was an unbroken line of the structural underpinning of corruption in the country’s system and unless it was dismantled, the rule of law would never be dealt with.

“And you saw that with the arms deal, you see that even with the PPE profiteering. Firstly, there is this question of impunity, but secondly I think there is this question of the structural dimension of why all of this is possible.

Honest

“And while we look at the politicians, let’s be very honest: without the banks and the money laundering, could the politicians do what they do?” Sooka asked.

Sooka said the TRC had been criticised for its failure in dealing with the “social-economic dimension of international crimes” and that it had only focused on the civil and political rights violations.

She said the commission, however, was a microcosm of South African society and those who had argued that mandate (be) interpreted broadly, had lost the debate.

“One of the compromises, of course, was that we would have special climatic hearings. Those hearings would focus on the role played by corporations and of course the role that was played by labour.

“I think many people forget how pivotal labour was to the transition and negotiations at the time. But what was interesting was that when business appeared before the commission, what they argued was that they were a victim of apartheid policies and what they forgot to raise was, in fact, that after 1983, they had actually become an extension of the state operatives to suppress black South Africans,” Sooka said.

Corruption

She added corruption continued in the country because of the elements that were never focussed on during the TRC.

“What we see almost is this unbroken line of the structural dimension, which we need to identify, raise awareness of and then deal with by dismantling them and holding them accountable.”

Paine said without criminal prosecution there would be no accountability for the two banks that powered their profitability through dodgy dealings.

Paine said the banks knew exactly what they were doing when they set up bank accounts, facilitated cash transactions between countries and where their profits were coming from during the time.

She added that “without dealing with that [the alleged crimes of the two banks], we are sending a strong message that that you are allowed to profit off human rights violations, suffering, devastation… it costs generations.”

Paine said the effects of apartheid would be seen “well beyond our lives”.

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