Pretoria - Justice Minister Jeff Radebe has urged authorities in Southern African countries to work together to attack criminals where it hurts the most by forfeiting their assets.
Addressing the Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network of Southern Africa (ARINSA) meeting in Pretoria on Monday, the Minister said criminals needed to know that they would not only end up behind bars for their crimes but that their ill-gotten wealth would also be forfeited.
The Network, which was founded in 2009, brings together prosecutors and investigators from nine African countries, with the aim to improve the tracing and confiscation of the proceeds of crime, particularly those associated with corruption.
ARINSA's members include Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Many criminals thought of prison as an "occupational hazard" and expected to be well-off once they left prison, Radebe said.
The minister added that asset forfeiture had proved valuable in ensuring that businesses and other assets used by organisations did not remain behind for the new leadership once the leaders of the syndicate had been convicted.
He noted that the heads of syndicates were notoriously difficult to convict for a crime and it was usually their "foot soldiers" who rarely owned any of the assets that were convicted.
"With civil forfeiture the state can take the assets and at least hurt the syndicate heads financially, even if they cannot be convicted of an offence," the minister added.
Civil forfeiture has been successful against attempts by organised crime to hide the real ownership of assets.
"Asset forfeiture has also enabled the state to close down the infrastructure used for criminal activities including, drug houses, cars, bars and clubs. The mission of asset forfeiture is to ensure that we begin to take the profit out of crime," Radebe said.
One of the challenges facing governments in the Southern African region was to ensure that scarce public resources were used for public benefit and not diverted by "corrupt elements' in private hands.
Governments also had to ensure that corruption in the public or private sphere did not undermine economic growth.
Radebe was optimistic that ARINSA would be successful in ensuring that stolen public assets and other proceeds of crime were channelled into the public purse where it belonged.
He added that the key to the success of any network was effective channels of communication.
"I am confident, that once ARINSA has developed its lines of communication and operating procedures, it will greatly facilitate the work of investigators and prosecutors in tracing, freezing, confiscating and repatriating the proceeds of corruption and other financial crimes that have been shifted across national borders," he said.
