The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said on Monday it has referred a criminal complaint against Deputy President David Mabuza and 12 other people.

The complaint was filed with the Investigating Directorate (ID) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), calling for charges of organised crime to be brought against them.

The NPA Act provides that if any person has reasonable grounds to suspect an offence has been committed he or she may report the matter to the head of the ID via an affidavit specifying the nature of the suspicion and the grounds on which the suspicion is based.

Outa’s affidavit to the ID said the 13, including Mabuza and two businesses, are alleged to be involved in criminal enterprises.

It proposes they be charged for contravening a section of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca) which refers to racketeering activities.

The referral alleges they acquired or maintained interest in or control of a number of criminal enterprises.

One is a land restitution scam allegedly involving obtaining control of vast tracts of land, sometimes fraudulently, and selling the land at inflated prices to the Land Claims Commission. The other enterprise is the “problem animal fund” which allegedly generated income by killing wildlife and aiding and abetting the land restitution scam.

Outa's referral revolves around the claims of corruption which conservationist and whistle-blower Fred Daniel raised over several years. Outa said though much has been written and exposed about the case, law enforcement agencies failed to take effective action.

The evidence in Outa’s referral comes from court records in Daniel’s civil action against the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency and others in the Pretoria high court over the loss of his 39,000ha nature reserve.

Outa said Mabuza was not cited as a defendant in the high court litigation but “his shadow loomed over this case” which was filed in 2010 and only went to trial in August last year.

It alleged six police case dockets had gone missing in the matter, pointing to a high level cover-up of evidence of corruption.

Outa said the land restitution scam involved individuals buying farms and acting as middlemen masquerading as farm owners, selling the farms at inflated profits to the Mpumalanga Regional Land Claims Commission, which in turn claimed the costs from the national department of land affairs, supposedly for communities of thousands of land “claimants” despite that no legal claims were registered for those farms.

It said labour tenancy claims were fraudulently presented as restitution claims for entire farms and the claimants were not verified. There were also many more “claimants” than the population of the area and it appeared that no land claimants had benefited from these claims.

“Outa’s interest in this complaint is the damage done to the South African and Mpumalanga economy because of corrupt interests in land restitution and the wildlife sector in Badplaas in Mpumalanga,” said Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage in the affidavit.

On the “problem animal fund” enterprise, Outa said this exploited the province’s biodiversity by monetising the killing of so-called “problem animals”. This was done by selling hunting permits to the highest bidder.

Outa alleged the fund ran a bank account outside the control of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) with no oversight.

Outa alleged Wildlife Protection Services (WPS) of the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency employees decided which animals were problem animals, issued hunting permits to the highest bidder and paid the proceeds into the fund.

“This conflict of interest and lack of oversight by the PMFA kept the criminal enterprise alive ... They saw biodiversity as a cookie jar,” said Duvenage.

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