Karyn Maughan writes in Business Day:
"While [Ajay Gupta's about the NPA withdrawing charges in the Estina dairy case] words have been greeted with scorn, derision and outrage, he may not be wrong. The Estina prosecution, and its multiple failures, is illustrative of the mess that Batohi will walk into when she takes over as national director of public prosecutions in February. Underresourced, dispirited, divided and forensically incompetent, this is an National Prosecutions Authority (NPA) in the midst of a credibility and staffing crisis."
"Forensically incompetent" - SAPS and NPA and the various director of public prosecutions (DPP) offices. Over the past year (and once before years ago) I experienced SAPS' and NPA's (Cape Town DPP's) amazing, hard-to-put-in-words incompetence and indifference as a complainant in a serious, life-and-death criminal matter.
Inter alia, 14 months after the case was opened, a policeman arrived to take statements on behalf of the DPP, the first and only time it was done. Note I did all the legwork for them including requesting the state forensic lab to send them the reports post haste which neither they nor SAPS were in a hurry to obtain (it's SAPS' job, though, but the DPP still defended SAPS' laziness on the principle of there for the grace of God).
The DPP couldn't determine which regional court must handle the case despite having the docket for almost a year, with it going back and forth; they never really investigated but preemptively declared there were no criminal proceedings and case, and was susceptible to, and permitted, political interference and pressure from the top provincial political officer. This was months before making the official decision not to prosecute. No reasons were given despite me asking and pointing out their mistakes and omissions.
I sent letter of complaint to the former national director Shaun Abrahams asking him to investigate (and recently, the presidency) went unanswered.
Despite the dysfunction in the NPA and its regional offices, DPPs were on the short list including Cape Town's Rodney de Kock. None of them should have been on the long list, never mind as short-listed candidates.
Batohi might be an exception because she has not been with the NPA for nine years. I think, though, she has an almost impossible job because the entire organisation and its leadership, and with perhaps few exceptions, staff, is compromised and captured.
"While [Ajay Gupta's about the NPA withdrawing charges in the Estina dairy case] words have been greeted with scorn, derision and outrage, he may not be wrong. The Estina prosecution, and its multiple failures, is illustrative of the mess that Batohi will walk into when she takes over as national director of public prosecutions in February. Underresourced, dispirited, divided and forensically incompetent, this is an National Prosecutions Authority (NPA) in the midst of a credibility and staffing crisis."
"Forensically incompetent" - SAPS and NPA and the various director of public prosecutions (DPP) offices. Over the past year (and once before years ago) I experienced SAPS' and NPA's (Cape Town DPP's) amazing, hard-to-put-in-words incompetence and indifference as a complainant in a serious, life-and-death criminal matter.
Inter alia, 14 months after the case was opened, a policeman arrived to take statements on behalf of the DPP, the first and only time it was done. Note I did all the legwork for them including requesting the state forensic lab to send them the reports post haste which neither they nor SAPS were in a hurry to obtain (it's SAPS' job, though, but the DPP still defended SAPS' laziness on the principle of there for the grace of God).
The DPP couldn't determine which regional court must handle the case despite having the docket for almost a year, with it going back and forth; they never really investigated but preemptively declared there were no criminal proceedings and case, and was susceptible to, and permitted, political interference and pressure from the top provincial political officer. This was months before making the official decision not to prosecute. No reasons were given despite me asking and pointing out their mistakes and omissions.
I sent letter of complaint to the former national director Shaun Abrahams asking him to investigate (and recently, the presidency) went unanswered.
Despite the dysfunction in the NPA and its regional offices, DPPs were on the short list including Cape Town's Rodney de Kock. None of them should have been on the long list, never mind as short-listed candidates.
Batohi might be an exception because she has not been with the NPA for nine years. I think, though, she has an almost impossible job because the entire organisation and its leadership, and with perhaps few exceptions, staff, is compromised and captured.
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