Batohi's comprehension of her legal obligations is criticised by MKP
National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi.
Image: Armand Hough / Independent Newspapers
uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s Sibonelo Nomvalo has said that National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi, has a “very dismissive” demeanour.
Nomvalo was speaking on the sidelines of Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating allegations made by SAPS KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Batohi was testifying on the role of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC), and the arrest of Crime Intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo.
Nomvalo said that as a member of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development, he was not surprised by Batohi’s answers to the Ad Hoc Committee.
“I know her modus operandi. She's very dismissive. She always comes to the committee and says, ‘No, I'm not aware of this’, ‘I will go and check my notes’ or ‘I will go and ask the DPP’. I mean, that is her style of answering questions.
“Today, there's absolutely nothing that we have gotten from her responses.
“There is a conclusion that I drew a long time ago about her, and that is, she doesn't know, and she doesn't understand her statutory obligations. She keeps on saying things that fall within the competence of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), while she herself has the provision, which gives her powers in the NPA Act,” Nomvalo said.
uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s Members of Parliament, Thulani Shongwe, and Sibonelo Nomvalo.
Image: Parliament RSA / Supplied
“Batohi has powers to supervise the work of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). She has the power to summon reports, powers to overturn the decisions of the DPP, but she has not been using those powers, and for delicate cases, this is not the first scenario that we are presented with here, which is undesirable. She failed to intervene and supervise the (Pastor Timothy) Omotoso case, and many (other) cases.
“So what does this mean? It means this person has been facing South Africans for a very long time because the NPA is a legal entity for the public, for the people of South Africa who go to court, for people who have been raped, for families who have lost their loved ones who have been brutally murdered, and then you have this kind of a person here, with serious and powerful powers, which she has not utilised.
“We are not shocked. We have long expressed our dissatisfaction with Batohi,” Nomvalo said.
“We have been persuading her to leave this office because she's a serious liability. It's for South Africans today to see for themselves the crisis that we're faced with, the crisis that we are dealing with, in this country.
“At first, she refused to even mention the name of a prosecutor who is implicated by the so-called intelligence report that she has. I mean, why would you protect a person who's implicated, because that is a potential criminal? Names have been mentioned here,” Nomvalo added.
“People who have not been charged, people who have not been prosecuted, but because Mkhwanazi believed that it was important to save the people of this country against any vicious act of criminal syndicates and drug cartels.
“So, it's for South Africans to make a conclusion about her. We have already made a conclusion Batohi. We know her, we're not shocked. We expected this.”