Newly appointed national director of public prosecutions advocate Andy Mothibi has been the head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) since 2016. He joined the corruption-busting unit following years of work in the private sector, including at banks and in the health-care field. Mothibi also worked as a prosecutor, a magistrate, at the SA Revenue Service and SAA.
In an interview with the Sowetan in 2022, Mothibi, a man who comes across as humble and reserved but passionate about his work, is described by one admiring colleague as a “hardworking technocrat”.
The Presidency announced on Tuesday night that Mothibi’s tenure at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) would begin in February.
An advisory panel chaired by justice minister Mmamoloko Kubayi shortlisted and interviewed candidates — advocates Nicolette Bell, Hermione Cronje, Andrea Johnson, Xolisile Khanyile, Adrian Mopp and Menzi Simelane — in December, but none were found to be suitable to become the prosecutions boss, said presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.
At the SIU, Mothibi leads a team of meticulous investigators who quietly and painstakingly troll through a trove of state documents to unravel graft through forensic work.
The SIU has been a beacon of hope in the pursuit of funds syphoned from the state coffers through corruption and maladministration. The unit has been the only functional weapon in pursuing monies stolen during the state capture period.
But the successes of his team in the fight against corruption in recent years have plucked him out of the shadows into the hearts of many South Africans as a hero of some sort. And the impact of his team’s work has been felt at the seat of power in the Union Buildings.
The SIU’s case roll includes stepping on the big toes of powerful politicians such as former minister of health Zweli Mkhize, who resigned in disgrace after the unit’s probe into the Digital Vibes contract scandal.
In a country where governance and public trust were eroded during the period of state capture, Mothibi and the SIU’s efforts to go after looters have served to restore faith in some state institutions. There has been a growing list of high-profile individuals and companies whose assets have either been frozen or forfeited to the state as a result of the SIU’s findings on irregular state contracts.
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In the last financial year, the SIU enrolled matters for civil litigation totalling R64.8bn — the biggest of which is the investigation into Transnet’s locomotives arising out of an unlawful contract. Of the total value of cases enrolled with the Special Tribunal — a key weapon in the fight against the looting of state funds — cases worth R2.2bn were related to the acquisition of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mothibi describes the establishment of the Special Tribunal to deal with civil litigation by the SIU as a game changer in how the graft buster conducted its work effectively.
“The increase in the number of proclamations by 122% since 2016 tells us that the confidence of the public is such that reporting allegations to the SIU has grown and you can only do that when you do investigations effectively, show the results and show there is consequence management,” Mothibi says.
“We believe we have disrupted the system very positively. Those who have done wrong are held to account and those that we referred matters to, we would really like to see action.”
Speaking to Sowetan inside a large boardroom in the multi-storey SIU building in Meyerspark, east of Pretoria, Mothibi, who is neatly dressed in a blue suit and matching tie, gets increasingly animated about his work.
He took at least 45 minutes of the time allocated for our interview explaining how the SIU successes were informed by a turnaround strategy he adopted nearly six years ago when he joined the unit.
He pages through a stack of presentation slides he printed to take us through strategic focus areas, which include:
- improved turnaround times of investigations;
- monitoring implementation of referrals; and
- consequence management.
“We really pride ourselves [on the] in that the major outcomes we reach when we investigate, include civil litigation, disciplinary action, prosecution referrals to the NPA and referrals to other regulatory authorities such as the SA Revenue Service,” he says.
“So I think all of these are really out there showing that we are really doing our best, implementing and executing our mandate effectively. We have really got the system working.”
From going after high-level corruption nationally, involving the powerful and connected, to investigating in provinces and local councils, the SIU has had its hands full dealing with graft, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In fact, it is rather ironic that despite its 25 years of existence, in which the SIU may have had some successful graft busts, it took the PPE investigation for its name to be etched into people’s memory.
And the PPE investigation did more than just that, according to Mothibi, whose strategy as head of the unit is anchored by turnaround time. “We’ve really surprised ourselves in the PPE investigations — the president said he wants reports on a six-weekly basis — so we kept to that until the final report we gave to him in December last year,” he says with a wry smile.
“So I said to my colleagues that we can do it; this standard must apply to all other investigations. We are busy internally now getting them into tune at Eskom, Transnet and, of course, we are taking into account the complexity of investigations.”
Another encouraging development for the SIU was that former Gauteng MEC Bandile Masuku took the unit’s report to court but did not succeed, as the court ruled in the SIU’s favour.
“So that told us that the quality of investigations is not compromised even when we speed up investigations, we want to keep it to that,” Mothibi adds.
There have, however, been setbacks in how effective the SIU’s work has been over the years, especially related to the prosecution of the cases it has successfully investigated — including those of state capture and PPE. Mothibi says in 2017 in particular, there were a number of cases sent for prosecution that produced no results.
“The general view, which has of course been demonstrated in the state capture investigation, is that some of the state institutions did not have the will to execute on these matters,” he says.
“We want to make sure that we implement the outcomes of the state capture commission report in a manner that effectively closes that chapter — that state entities would have been, as people say, captured.”
Mothibi describes corruption in the government as endemic, and this was entrenched during a period when people could do wrong things with impunity. He says now that the SIU is turning the tide, people get surprised.
Despite some criticism and attempts to link the SIU’s work to politics, Mothibi maintains that his duty is to execute the unit’s mandate of acting without fear, favour or prejudice.
“We try hard to demonstrate to the public that our investigations are not politically motivated, there are no political considerations in any of our investigations. Our findings are informed by evidence — not by who and so on. If in the process of investigating, the evidence points us to any individual at any level, official or private company, we will get to you without fear, favour or prejudice.”
Could he do the same at the NPA and restore the public’s trust in the prosecutions body?
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