Protector’s report critical of Ipid and McBride
The public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has released a scathing report on the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).
Mkhwebane accuses the watchdog — which probes allegations of crime and corruption in the SA Police Service (SAPS) — and its former head Robert McBride, of improperly hiring a cellphone expert to analyse alleged death threats against him and investigators.
She has found that Ipid was guilty of procurement irregularities and irregular appointment and maladministration in terms of its permanent appointment of cellphone expert Theresa Botha as a deputy director in the national specialised investigation team.
According to Mkhwebane’s report released last week, Botha had worked for the SAPS as an “administrative clerk” from 1994 to 2016 and had, according to her police career profile, “never attended any data analysis course within the SAPS”.
Ipid is reportedly pursuing a potentially explosive investigation into allegations of widespread fraud and corruption in the SAPS and State Information Technology Agency.
It is unclear whether Ipid, now under the leadership of executive director Victor Ofentse Senna, will seek to challenge Mkhwebane’s report, which police minister Bheki Cele will undoubtedly argue serves as vindication of his decision not to renew McBride’s contract.
In the report, which McBride has told Business Day has not been officially sent to him, the public protector finds that he ignored an adverse report on Botha’s appointment by the presidency’s counsel Richard Moloko and “did not implement the recommendations” made in that report.
Ipid spokesperson Sontaga Seisa said the directorate has not received Mkhwebane’s report, which calls on it to “take disciplinary steps” against the officials involved in Botha’s “irregular” appointment.
“I don’t have such report. I have to confirm with our executive director office. I can’t comment without verifying,” Seisa said via WhatsApp.
The public protector’s office insists that the report has been sent to Ipid.
The alleged death threats at the centre of the saga were made in late 2016, when Ipid was investigating former national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane for fraud and corruption, and when tensions between the police service and the directorate were at an alltime high.
But former Ipid investigator Cedrick Nkabinde, whose 2018 complaint about Botha’s appointment sparked Mkhwebane’s Ipid probe, maintains that only one Ipid officer has
received these threats. McBride too told Mkhwebane that he had been threatened.
Prior to his suspension by Ipid in May 2018, Nkabinde was reportedly the principal investigator in a case against a Crime Intelligence operative, Captain Morris “KGB” Tshabalala.
Tshabalala was arrested in January 2018 for allegedly defrauding Crime Intelligence of more than R50m in budget allocated to him during the ANC’s 2012 elective conference in Mangaung.
Following Nkabinde’s suspension, Tshabalala’s lawyer, Mpesi Makhanya, told the court that the Ipid investigator would testify in defence of his client, and state under oath that the Ipid case against Tshabalala was “politically motivated”. Nkabinde, however, never did so.
Mkhwebane has now found that Nkabinde’s allegation that he was improperly suspended “in retaliation” for making a “protected disclosure” about Botha’s appointment and alleged unethical conduct by McBride was substantiated.
She has ordered Ipid to “develop a policy relating to the proper handling” of whistleblowing from within its own ranks.