Advocate Hermione Cronje, former Investigating Directorate (ID) head, now called IDAC, and part of the team that had established the Asset Forfeiture Unit, said she left the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for professional reasons.

“I certainly saw dysfunction that I thought needed to be addressed,” she told the panel, headed by Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, on Thursday.

She was the fifth candidate to be interviewed for the position of the country’s next National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP).

Cronje resigned as head of the NPA’s Investigating Unit in 2022 due to frustrations within the prosecution authority, which included a skills shortage and other obstacles that she said made her life there difficult. Yet, she feels she is ready to return and take up the reins as the head of the organisation.

Cronje described the skills crisis within the NPA as a “catastrophe” requiring urgent attention. While acknowledging the diligence of some hard-working professionals, she asserted that the system itself degrades prosecutors, reducing them to “second-hand professionals”, an outcome she stressed must be rectified.

Cronje explained that when she tried to recruit people to the ID, she looked for people with specific skills that could get prosecutions done sooner rather than later.

“When I arrived, I was told these are the people working on state capture cases. As a general rule, they were not up to task.”

Cronje added that the public is frustrated with state capture prosecutions and they will continue to be, because she does not know whether the NPA has the skills to put together the necessary charge sheets.

She also voiced the opinion that prosecutors are not keen on taking on difficult prosecutions because they are chasing a conviction rate.

Cronje said a skill audit is imperative to improve things. During her time there, she called for such an audit, but she told the panel that the results were so depressing that they were not released.

Asked by Kubayi whether this was why she left, Cronje said partially, but everything within the NPA while she was there was a fight. She had to, among others, fight for building space for staff from the NPA’s administration, only to be told that it is not possible.

“You find that the NPA is uninterested in implementing what you want… It takes leadership to say this is what must be done. Don’t tell me it’s not possible.”

Cronje said it was frustrating and exhausting. “You want to build cases, but there is no staff, no infrastructure, just no support.”

She assured that her departure from the NPA was not due to a lack of stamina, but rather frustration. “I never left the NPA to abandon it,” Cronje said.

According to her, the NPA is very hierarchical, and people don’t want to upset this. “There is no hiding from the fact that there are challenges to the NPA’s performance,” she said.

Asked how she will change things if she is chosen for the job, Cronje said it is important to articulate a clear vision, as people appreciate clarity.

Confronted with opinions that the NPA is captured, Cronje said there should be standards that ensure the integrity of staff, which include regular integrity testing of prosecutors.

She also feels that legislation needs to change so that the NDPP can discipline senior prosecutors, without involving the president. Cronje gave the assurance that she is not hard to work with, as some suggest, and added that she is passionate about the NPA.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

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