THE head of the Hawks says action will be taken against individuals involved in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank soon.
Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya said in Tshwane last week that certain parts of the investigation had been finalised.
It’s understood the docket is sitting on the desk of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Shamila Batohi.
Lebeya said the investigators had to be careful in making arrests.
“In one area we’re ready but in another there’s still something that needs to be done,” he said.
He’d expected movement on one case some time ago but it was up to prosecutors to decide when to act. He said while police investigators were often impatient, prosecutors wanted to close all the loopholes that might appear in court.
“We have cases that I think all of us, especially when you ask a police person, police will always say we must move on this one.
“At times, we might be wanting to move too quickly, whereas the one that is going to present this case in court may say: ‘I want to close that loophole’,” Lebenya said.
He acknowledged there were serious problems facing his organisation.
But he said a new structure was approved in October and new investigators had been recruited.
There were 1 700 investigators working on almost 19 000 cases. Of these, 1 800 cases had already been sent to the NPA.
Lebeya said his members were working as hard as they could but they could be moving quicker.
“The honeymoon is over. Even myself, I feel it’s over. I’m impatient within me. I’d have loved to have moved quicker than the pace I’m moving at,” he said. – NEWS24