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The Congress of South African Trade Unions in the NW is highly disappointed by the announcement by the National Prosecuting Authority that they have no strong case against the former MEC of Education and his friends who were arrested in 2010 for alleged corruption in the Provincial Department of Education.

The NPA, SAPS and Hawks in the NW must be embarrassed and ashamed for arresting and prosecuting people for three to four years, and later the case is thrown out court due to their delaying tactics. It is clear that those who are politically connected will never be prosecuted for corruption or killing others.
The delaying of cases involving corruption and the killing of some political leaders is done deliberately for years by the investigators, the state and the NPA so that at the end the court will rule on a technical argument.

The accused were arrested and released on bail of half a million each in 2010 /2011. The case has been with the court for more than four years. At some stage the accused undermined the court by not appearing in court and nothing happened; things were normal as if nothing was serious.
So the state and the investigators never took this case as seriously as it is by the public. What is serious for them are political interventions on corruption and the destruction of our 20 years democracy and who is arrested and from which factions does he or she belong.

At the time when the accused were arrested, it was made clear that the state had a strong case against them, involving tax payers’ money which was misused for individuals’ gains.
We are highly disappointed in the manner in which our state and our investigations are being run by ‘political interventions’ in cases of murder and corruption. Moss Phakoe is killed and the state will not appeal due to the ‘serious shortcomings’ by the state. What is that? People were arrested for corruption and today they are being announced as councillors to lead our communities for service delivery to the poor working class.

The NPA and the NW investigators must be worried and they must be investigated by an independent body. They arrested and prosecuted those accused of killing the late Moss. Later they were freed.

They arrested four accused for alleged corruption in the Department of Education four years ago. Today in 2014 we are told that they are free. They arrested the former MEC of Local Government for allegedly being part of the political conspiracy for killing the late regional secretary of the ANC. Today he is free with other people.
They must be worried that they are messing up our justice system and our democracy.

What must we do with whistleblowers who are being confronted with such critical corruption on a daily basis? There are wrongdoings in our democracy and it means we keep quiet because they is no need to report to the SAPS or the Hawks, knowing that the case will be investigated for formalities and later is quashed by both the NPA and the SAPS.

It must be very clear that we will not keep quiet when wrong things are happening, in particular on cases that have public interest. The state must know that we are not just an organization of individuals; we are leading the working class. When they arrested people, they had convinced us that they had case against the accused. Why now, and why is only happening to those who have money or those who say they are political connected?

The NW NPA and their friends in the SAPS and their investigators must be worried. They are destroying those cases, as happened with Moss case. What is happening in our justice system today is a very painful. A full investigation must be done, in particular into the NPA and all magistrates’ courts.

Currently there is a cry in Rustenburg magistrates’ court where poor women who are expected to be paid what is due to them as per their agreement are not getting their maintenance money due to corruption and what is taking place in court.
The case of a white racist man who assaulted a nine-year-old boy in May 2014 is being postponed for the fifth time and later it will be thrown out of court, because the white man has power of money. What happens to those who have no money? Is this democracy for the rich only, or is everybody equal before the law?

We request the Ministers of Justice, Police and Intelligence to be worried about these things. We have written letters to both the Minister of Police and the National Commissioner and later we wrote to the Minister of Justice to investigate these issues that are undermining our justice and our democracy.
- See more at: http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=9764#sthash.0RDHeHIv.dpuf

Issued by COSATU