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Hermione Cronje, director of the Directorate of Investigations of the NPA.
Elizabeth Sejake, Rapport
- The head of the NPA’s Directorate of Investigations, Hermione Cronje, was part of a virtual panel discussion on Thursday.
- During the apartheid-era crimes webinar, Open Secrets announced that it had submitted an evidence file to the NPA.
- Cronje said the NPA would evaluate the document before deciding how to proceed.
The social justice organization Open Secrets submitted a file this week to the National Tax Authority (NPA), establishing the roles of the European banks Kredietbank (KBC) and Quintet Bank (KBL) in the alleged sale of arms to the apartheid regime, the organization director Hennie Van Vuuren said Thursday.
The NPA says it will evaluate the document before determining whether or how to proceed.
Van Vuuren spoke during a panel discussion on justice for apartheid economic crimes organized by the Financial Mail on Thursday.
The discussion, which focused on impunity for corruption and economic crime in South Africa, was also attended by the head of the NPA Investigation Directorate, defender Hermione Cronje.
Human rights lawyer and former Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Yasmin Sooka was also on the panel, as was Open Secrets legal researcher Tabitha Paine.
Van Vuuren said the organization believed that banks had operated in the shadows for a long time and that evidence showed that corporations provided a service that supported front companies in countries like Liberia, where money was laundered during apartheid.
“In the one [hand]You have the human rights violations that we have talked about. On the other hand, these banks became very profitable during the 1980s, and we argue that there is simply no coincidence. Banks like KBC have not become economic powerhouses out of nowhere.
“They came precisely because of their role in helping regimes like the apartheid regime to impose those sanctions. I think, crucially, this is not just what we present to the NPA in filing this dossier, it is not just the legal argument, but the Detailed evidence, and some of that evidence includes evidence from former employees of Amsco, the South African state arms company, who participated in setting up the mechanisms operating offices from the South African embassy in Paris.
“If we follow the money, it takes us to the banks, and we argue that it is time to be accountable and this is the first big step in that direction,” Van Vuuren said.
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Speaking during the interaction, Cronje said that he would take a look at the file and decide if it was within the mandate of the NPA. He added that the authority would have to assess whether it had the capacity to take it on in light of all the other priorities it faced, including state crimes related to capture.
“The reason I feel that it is important for us to receive this dossier is that I believe that the networks that we are facing today are networks that go back decades. And it is important for us to understand how those networks work,” Cronje said.
He added that the NPA was developing capacities to deal with serious corruption cases.
Cronje said that corruption cases could be categorized as “serious corruption, complex corruption, and high-profile corruption,” each with a unique set of requirements necessary to effectively address them.
The head of the investigation directorate said that dealing with high-profile corruption meant dealing with CEOs of powerful companies, banks and high-level politicians. She said this often brought with it great scrutiny.
“But complex corruption is complex for several reasons: it is not a conventional law enforcement job to look at financial records, to understand the regulatory environment in which banks and corporations operate. These are not the day-to-day skills of law enforcement agencies. order, “he said.
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Cronje said she was eager to assess the dossier and the scope of work that had already been done to prepare it, adding that she did not believe that would detract from the work the NPA was already doing around the state’s capture.
“We are looking to strengthen mutual legal assistance. So if I talk to the Belgian central authorities about how to hold the banks accountable for the current state capture funds that have made their way through those banks, I don’t see why I can’t ask them to investigate the possibility of helping us with this case, “he said.
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