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Adv Hermione Cronje.
Gallo Images / Phill Magakoe
- The head of the NPA Directorate of Investigations, Hermoine Cronje, participated in the online panel discussion on apartheid economic crimes on Thursday.
- The discussion was facilitated by Financial Mail and Open Secret, which announced that it had released a dossier accusing two European banks of an alleged apartheid economic crime.
- PThe panelists said that the origins of the crime today can be found in events committed years ago.
While there is a demand that politicians be held accountable for their role in capturing the state, it is also worth noting that corporate companies have played a role as well.
And all those involved finally had to pay for the crimes, said the head of the Investigations Directorate of the National Tax Authority, Hermoine Cronje.
Cronje was part of an online panel discussion organized by the social justice organization Open Secrets and Financial Mail on Thursday.
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Titled “Is it time for justice for apartheid economic crimes?”, The panelists included human rights lawyer and former Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) commissioner Yasmin Sooka, the director of Open Secrets Hennie Van Vuuren and the organization’s legal researcher, Tabitha Paine.
During the discussion, the organization announced that it presented this week a file to the National Prosecutor’s Office (NPA), which establishes the roles of the Belgian and Luxembourg banks Kredietbank (KBC) and Quintet Bank (KBL) in the alleged arms sale. to apartheid. regime.
Speaking in the online discussion, Cronje said:
There is a lot of public demand that we target politicians for their role in capturing the state, but equally, many of these crimes were facilitated by companies that received bids and agreed to pay bribes.
“That is the simple model that is facilitating the environment in the state to award tenders. Someone has to pay for that, and it is the big corporations with deep pockets …”
He added that by delving into crimes, the participation of companies on all fronts of transactions was finally recognized.
Sooka said there is an unbroken line to the structural basis of corruption in the country’s system and unless it is dismantled, the rule of law will never be addressed.
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“And you saw that with the arms business, you see that even with the speculation of the PPE. First, there is the question of impunity, but second, I think there is the question of the structural dimension of why all this is possible.
Honest
“And while we look at the politicians, let’s be very honest: without banks and money laundering, could politicians do what they do?” Sooka asked.
Sooka said that the TRC had been criticized for its failure to address the “socio-economic dimension of international crimes” and that it had only focused on violations of civil and political rights.
He said that the commission, however, was a microcosm of South African society and those who had argued that the mandate (to be) interpreted broadly had lost the debate.
“One of the commitments, of course, was that we would have special climate hearings. Those hearings would focus on the role that companies played and, of course, the role that workers played.
“I think a lot of people forget how fundamental the work was for the transition and the negotiations at that time. But the interesting thing was that when the businesses appeared before the commission, what they argued was that they were victims of apartheid policies and what They forgot to raise. It was, in fact, that after 1983, they had become an extension of state operations to crack down on black South Africans, “Sooka said.
Corruption
He added that corruption continued in the country due to elements that it never focused on during the CVR.
“What we see almost is this unbroken line of the structural dimension, that we have to identify, raise awareness and then take care of dismantling them and holding them accountable.”
Paine said that without criminal prosecution there would be no liability for the two banks that boosted their profitability through unreliable deals.
Paine said banks knew exactly what they were doing when they opened bank accounts, facilitated cash transactions between countries, and where their profits came from during that time.
He added that “without taking care of that [the alleged crimes of the two banks], we are sending a strong message that you are allowed to benefit from human rights violations, suffering, devastation … it takes generations. ”
Paine said the effects of apartheid would be seen “far beyond our lives.”
