BREAKING: Open Secrets Takes the Hawks and the NPA to Court for Failing to timeously hold the PRASA looters to account
20 MAY 2025 (Cape Town) – Open Secrets has filed an application at the North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria to review the conduct of the Hawks and the NPA during their long-running investigation into corruption at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA). The application asks the court to declare unlawful both the delay in finalising the investigations by the Hawks and the NPA, and the related failure by the NPA to decide whether to prosecute the perpetrators.
Over a decade ago, the Hawks and the NPA began investigating the cohort of profiteers, including former group CEO of PRASA Lucky Montana, Sfiso Buthelezi, Roy Moodley, Makhensa Mabhunda and Auswell Mashaba to name a few who siphoned off R5 billion of public funds from PRASA during 2012 to 2017.
The PRASA looters’ modus operandi has been well-documented by the Auditor General, the Public Protector, the State Capture Commission, investigative journalists as well as Open Secrets. Despite the mountain of evidence publicly available and numerous well-founded recommendations to prosecute those involved, no cases have yet been brought and no arrests yet made. The Hawks and the NPA have been investigating this case for over 10 years – an unjustified pattern of prolonged delays that plagues State Capture cases.
Open Secrets now asks the court to declare the Hawks’ and the NPA’s failure to complete the investigations and decide whether to prosecute unlawful and direct the conclusion of those processes.
Luthando Vilakazi, a lawyer at Open Secrets reflects: “This application is a step towards holding the Hawks and the NPA accountable for not fulfilling their important public duties to investigate and prosecute crime, and to sanction them for their irrational delay in concluding the investigation and deciding whether to prosecute”.
This application comes after Open Secrets published the Wanted: The State Capture Conspirators report in 2022, which exposed the enablers and beneficiaries of state capture corruption, including at PRASA, and a 3-part investigation in 2024 into the PRASA looters in particular. Without accountability by the criminal justice system, some of these alleged beneficiaries of corruption now sit in Parliament making laws on how to tackle corruption in South Africa such as Mkhonto Wesizwe representative Lucky Montana.
To date there is no accountability for the looting of PRASA, and Open Secrets demands that the Hawks and the NPA be jointly held to account for their failure to perform their duties within a reasonable time.
Open Secrets is represented by Power & Associates Inc. Attorneys, Adv Buhle Lekokotla SC and Adv Uday Naidoo.
