Johannesburg- National police commissioner Khehla Sitole has blamed Police Minister Bheki Cele for the police’s poor response to the July unrests in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal that led to the deaths of more than 300 people.
This is as the embattled police boss launched a desperate bid to save his job after President Cyril Ramaphosa on September 20 invited him to explain why he should not be suspended in connection with allegations of failure to assist the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) during an investigation into the alleged use of a spy device at the last ANC elective conference.
Sunday World can reveal that, in his representations on why he should not be suspended, Sitole told Ramaphosa that Cele had failed to approve the police budget on time, leading to a poor response by the officers during unrest that cost the economy R50-billion.
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Sitole told the president that despite Cele receiving the budget in February, he only approved it in August.
He said the lack of an approved budget meant that crime intelligence could not work optimally during the unrests.
There was a lot of “finger-pointing” between the military, state intelligence and the police in the aftermath of the unrest.
Ramaphosa last month approved the terms of reference of an expert panel to probe the violence and the security lapses in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Ramaphosa appointed professor Sandy Africa to chair the panel. Other members include former legal adviser to ex-president Thabo Mbeki Mojanku Gumbi and former co-ordinator for the national intelligence co-ordinating committee Silumko Sokupa.
Action Society spokesperson Ian Cameron said Sitole’s mooted suspension comes at the wrong time.
“A suspension like this during increasing levels of social unrest is reckless to say the least. Not only that, but it also means that challenges such as the gender-based violence pandemic will be even more neglected, not to mention the social unrest risk posed by the upcoming elections and planned trade union strikes,” Cameron said.
One of the reasons advanced by Ramaphosa on his intention to suspend Sitole was his alleged failure to assist Ipid on a matter related to the alleged use of a R45-million spy device called a grabber at the ANC’s 2017 conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg.
In January, judge Norman Davis of the Pretoria High Court found that Sitole and his two deputies, Francinah Vuma and Lebeona Tsumane, had placed the interest of the ANC ahead of those of the country in the procurement of the grabber.
Davis said the three senior officers had thwarted the Ipid probe by refusing to hand over documentation related to the purchasing of the listening device. The Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the three in June.
Sitole has argued in his representations to Ramaphosa that they had referred Ipid to parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence since the documents were classified.
He also noted that the summonses issued in relation to the part of the case that Davis had ruled on have since been set aside, showing that there was no basis for his suspension as he argued that Cele was behind the suspension.
Sitole outlined the cases of graft that he has tackled in the ranks of the service and how Cele allegedly interfered in his work.
One of the cases related to the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) by crime intelligence.
Sitole has since shifted former crime intelligence head Peter Jacobs, an ally of Cele, to another division after the inspector-general of intelligence, Setlhomamaru Dintwe, found that the use of the Secret Service Account (slush fund) to buy PPE was irregular.
In November, Sitole fired deputy police commissioner Bonang Mgwenya, who is facing criminal charges including fraud at the Palm Ridge magistrate’s court.
Sitole is said to have told Ramaphosa that this was one of the cases in which Cele had interfered in.
Sitole also told Ramaphosa about the procurement of blue lights to the tune of R190-million.
Former acting commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane, who was the accounting officer at the time, is facing charges of fraud and theft related to the blue-lights tender at the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court.
Cele and Sitole have for some time been at loggerheads over the latter’s insistence that the minister was interfering in his work.
In March, Cele requested Ramaphosa to establish an inquiry into Sitole.
Cele’s spokesperson, Lirandzu Themba, said: “Minister Cele doesn’t know about correspondence between the national commissioner and the president.”
Presidency spokesperson Tyrone Seale declined to comment on the matter.
“We did indicate earlier in the week that further engagement on this matter will be between the president and the national commissioner,” he said.
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