The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) and the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) formally sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College (BJMC) and SABRIC, marking a significant milestone in the nation’s efforts to combat these pervasive issues.
The signing of the MOU took place at Brigitte Mabandla Justice College in Tshwane on Monday.
Amongst the guest were Director-General of the DOJ&CD, Advocate Doc Mashabane, and the Chief Executive Officer of SABRIC, Nischal Mewalall, Chairperson of SABRIC and Managing Director of the Banking Association of South Africa, Bongiwe Kunene.
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) and the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) are set to take a historic step in the fight against financial crimes and corruption in South Africa.
The Director-General of the DOJ&CD, Advocate Doc Mashabane, and the Chief Executive Officer of SABRIC, Nischal Mewalall, sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College (BJMC) and SABRIC.
Under the visionary leadership of Advocate Mashabane and Mr Mewalall, this MOU represents a pivotal collaboration aimed at enhancing the security and integrity of the South African financial system.
“The partnership is a testament to the Department’s commitment to fortifying relationships with critical stakeholders in the financial and banking sectors.
The MoU outlines several areas of cooperation, including mitigating financial and cybercrime risks, developing and implementing digital capabilities, and enhancing capacity-building and skills development within the sector,” said Director-General of the DOJ&CD, Advocate Doc Mashabane.
“There’s an urgent need to build capacity and train lawyers, prosecutors and investigators on tackling cyber-crime,” he said.
Mashabane highlighted that the rise of cybercrime has made it critical for those working within the legal sector – including those in law enforcement – to acquire skills in learning how to prosecute cyber-crimes – where financial crimes are pervasive.
“We have already got some funding from the CARA [Criminal Assets Recovery Account] fund to train and build capacity on digital forensic investigation. We need to retrain [officials] to appreciate what you need in order to successfully prosecute cyber-crime.
“You need to have judicial officials…magistrates and judges exposed to some form of capacity building [to understand] challenges of the cyber space as well as the crimes that are committed there.
Equally, even lawyers. The entire legal profession will require some form of capacity. SO we will have to be bold in our thinking and be ambitious,” he said.
The DG added that even members of the public themselves are at risk of falling victim to cybercrime.
“Beyond the capability of the state to address [cybercrime] I think awareness raising is very important for all South Africans.
As we move forward with technological advancements…all of us have to appreciate that there are major risks associated with it.
“Unfortunately, we cannot opt out.
The least we can do is identify these risks and part of it is what this college would have to subject all of us to some form of awareness; to some form of training so that even members of the public can also benefit,” he said.
Mashabane said the MoU signed between the two institutions will not “gather dust in the cupboards”.
“We will have to really rapidly implement this.
By February when the colleagues…admit students, we must commit ourselves that we will already have some basic introduction programme that will begin to expose people, particularly in the criminal justice system in relation to the challenges of cybercrimes,” he said.
“This collaboration will significantly further ongoing corruption reforms to improve transparency and accountability and will address things like fraud relating to trustees and deceased estate cases and enhance the effectiveness of courts by assisting in identifying bank account owners.
And these are just two examples,” said SABRIC’s CEO Nischal Mewalall.
Mewalall said joint projects will also be designed to identify, assess, and mitigate risks in various contexts to streamline processes to enhance effectiveness, reduce redundancies, ensure better data integration, and facilitate expansion.
“We will leverage cutting-edge technology to create efficiencies to bolster our mutual and national objectives. By making South Africa a hostile environment for criminals, we will also make it a better place for all its people,” he said.