Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi, has dismissed claims of alleged infiltration in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and clarified that the NPA boss, Adv. Shamila Batohi’s reported statement to that effect was a “wrong choice of words”. 

This, after Batohi’s reported comments of alleged “infiltration in the National Prosecuting Authority”, garnered calls for a formal inquiry into the allegations. 

Kubayi has poured cold water on the alleged infiltration in the NPA claims, which slowly sparked calls for a formal inquiry into the prosecuting authority.

“I met immediately; she did the interview on the evening on Thursday. On that Friday, we had a meeting with the judiciary’s president – just that – the whole day. In the afternoon, I met with the NDPP; I asked, and she explained to me, which I went public about, that it was the wrong choice of words. It’s not infiltration. There are incidences where you’d find a prosecutor who has conducted themselves wrongly, and it happens because we live in a society where corruption happens, where individuals, you know, you’d have seen some of the last week we were having a prosecutor in court, I think it’s outing, where we had a prosecutor in court that was facing charges. So it’s those things. She did clarify to me that there was a wrong choice of way that she used; it was not infiltration,” explains Kubayi.

Batohi also recently backtracked on the comments in parliament following pressure to clarify the said statement. 

The statement came amid a growing lens of scrutiny against the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) as a result of high-profile cases that are changing the public’s perception of the institution. 

Minister Kubayi has further cautioned against painting prosecutors with the same brush, charging that it hurts the institution. 

“It hurts the organisation, it hurts those, and it’s difficult to recruit colleagues in government. So if we lose these prosecutors and in mass they leave, because they feel that they are in an environment that is not going to save them, we’re going to go back to square one; to train a prosecutor is going to take a long time. So those are the consequences, and my question as a minister, and my fear, is that this public outcry must not lead to a mass exodus of prosecutors who are feeling that as we walk into courts, people are looking at us differently, and therefore I can’t be here,” Kubayi adds.