THICK END OF THE WEDGE
PETER BRUCE: Mr President, give Shamila Batohi her tough cookies
Ramaphosa must move now on the appointment of the investigative director of the NPA
At the time of writing the one promise I care about that President Cyril Ramaphosa has made and patently hasn’t kept, yet, is to appoint an investigating director at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). I can only assume there’s been a hitch. A new head of the NPA, Shamila Batohi, has been in the job exactly four weeks. But she knew she had it three months ago, and back in early December raised the issue of the investigating director in public after meeting with Ramaphosa. So they had clearly spoken about it back then. Given the urgent need to tackle crime and corruption, and the fact that Ramaphosa has been president now for more than a year, you’d have thought the paperwork necessary for the creation of the investigating director would have been done over Christmas. Ramaphosa doesn’t have to find and appoint the director — that would be inappropriate even though the NPA Act gives him the power —he can let the head of the NPA do that. He simply has to sign a decree giving Bato...
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