State capture hollowed out the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which “will take a long time” to rebuild.
So says Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi in an interview with News24. She says state capture left the NPA divided and under-resourced.
In the interview, Kubayi acknowledges that she was among those who underestimated the severity of the damage caused by state capture.
She is quoted as saying: “One of the issues that sometimes we underplay, because before coming into this portfolio, I would have underplayed it as well, is the impact of state capture. Rebuilding doesn’t [happen] overnight. So you have institutions that have been hollowed out because of state capture.”
She adds: “To build an experienced prosecutor will not take you a year. So it will take a long time to be able to rebuild that. Now, you are finding that the NPA was divided, and you had camps inside the NPA. You had quite a few dysfunctional things. But as you work towards rebuilding, it takes time to do that.”