Extra R75m given to state capture inquiry despite Tito Mboweni’s refusal

The government has given in to the state capture commission of inquiry, allocating it an additional R75m to continue its work.

“We want a situation where there is finality of the work of the commission of inquiry; we have already [allocated] a lot of money so we cannot abruptly end the commission's work. The commission has to end by giving us a report, that's the first thing we must consider,” justice minister Ronald Lamola said on Wednesday.

Lamola was appearing before the justice and correctional services portfolio committee in parliament.

During his budget speech in February, finance minister Tito Mboweni told parliament that he would not give the commission further funding, saying the "perpetual extensions it was getting were not conducive". The commission has already spent more than R800m since its inception.

But on Wednesday, Lamola told the committee that despite Mboweni's earlier refusal to allocate more money, talks had taken place with his department and more money would be made available.

He said his department, the secretariat of the commission and the Treasury had had a conversation and had found the R75m to help the commission finish its work.

Lamola, however, warned that the commission should finish its work by the end of June, in accordance with the court order.

“It is also in the hands of the chair of the commission of inquiry to ensure that it is so" he said.

“We would want to see the commission finish its work because it also affects our programmes, because some of the money that we might have to find to help the commission, we have to cut from some of our programmes. We are beginning to feel the squeeze of resources, so it's important that it must finish its work,” said Lamola.

Mboweni increased the budget of the commission by R63m in his medium-term budget in October, when its deadline was extended to March 2021.

He said then that the department might have no option but to cut some of its spending plans to finance the extended mandate of the commission.

“This perpetual extension of the inquiry into state capture is not really conducive. They must finish their work, in fact their work in my view is much less than the work that was done by the commission of inquiry into the Public Investment Corporation.

“The PIC commission of inquiry has concluded and this one just keeps going on and on, so it must end at some stage unless their director-general has anything to say, I don't think I'm going to sign up on another tranche of cash to the state capture commission. They must finish their work,” he said then.

National Prosecuting Authority head Shamila Batohi, who was also at the meeting, said it was taking time prosecuting cases from information emanating from the state capture inquiry because they needed to do more investigations.

She said there was a challenge with timing and sequencing because the commission was still doing its work, which made it challenging for the NPA and the commission to work closely on some of the cases that could eventually be prosecuted.

“The investigators have to verify the information that we receive as we know there is no cross-examination — well, limited cross-examination — before the commission. And so, as investigators, we have to anticipate those things. There is a lot more work that needs to go into the investigation after we receive evidence from the commission,” said Batohi.