Phiyega seethes after police report claims conflict of interest
FORMER national police commissioner Riah Phiyega has been left fuming after the police submitted a report in Parliament alleging she was doing business with the state during her tenure.
Phiyega yesterday described it as “misrepresentation of the highest order” and threatened to sue the police.
This came after the SAPS top brass tabled a report to the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), which fin- gered 32 police officials doing business with the state.
Last night, Phiyega told The Star that the alleged company was a business unit of Transnet in which she was an executive and was sold to an individual in 2002. “You know the company has not existed for many years. It was a business division of Transnet that handled the travelling of Transnet executives,” she said.
“I was not collecting any fees. I served on various boards of Transnet without collecting any fees,” she said.
Phiyega said she was angry that the police would drag her name through the mud by tabling such a report. “It is misrepresentation of the highest order,” she said.
In the list it is said Phiyega was paid R9 729. But she said someone in the police was being mischievous.
The police admitted to Scopa that Phiyega was no longer part of the company.
SAPS head of human resources Lieutenant-General Bonang Mgwenya said they had instituted investigations into the cases of officials doing business with the state.
Mgwenya said that with Phiyega, a forensic investigation was conducted and it was found that she had resigned from the company. She added that the report had cleared Phiyega.
ANC MP Nyami Booi accused the police of failing to rein in their members for doing business with the state.
He said in their own report the police said there were 469 officers involved in corruption.
Scopa chairperson Themba Godi said that when the auditor-general (AG) released his first report into officials doing business with the state across government, the police ranked high. Out of contracts worth R30 million investigated by the AG, the police were involved in contracts totalling R14m.
Selinah Nkosi of the Public Service Commission said they often write to the ministers to ask them to deal with officials doing business with the state in order to remove the conflict of interest.
Those who are doing business with the state were identified in the records of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.
Deputy Police Minister Bongani Mkongi said they would attend to the matter soon.
Mkongi described the lack of answers from his officials as an embarrassment to the police, and he would meet with the AG to deal with the matter.
Some of the officials involved were cleaners, clerks, crime intelligence officials and forensic science laboratory officials. The others were members of the supply-chain management.