By Thapelo Molefe
The chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans, Molefi Legoete, has described the Department of Defence as a “crime scene”, while committee member Carl Niehaus accused the department of failing to take internal disciplinary action against officials implicated in misconduct.
The remarks came during a briefing by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), commonly known as the Hawks, on Wednesday, as the committee questioned the status of three cases involving the Department of Defence and Military Veterans.
The cases involve allegations surrounding a military veterans’ skills development programme, inflated ambulance invoices involving Maponya 911 and the unauthorised rental of vehicles by the South African Air Force.
Legoete said the committee could not accept a situation where alleged criminality continued within the Defence Force while internal disciplinary processes failed to produce consequences.
“The National Defence Department has become a crime scene from diesel to buses, to meat, to cheese, to bread, to almost everything. And we can’t continue this way,” he said.
Legoete said the committee’s objective was to ensure that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was free of criminal elements within its ranks.
He said alleged losses involving fuel, vehicles, food and other areas had reached billions of rands.
“These things come into billions of rands, which we lose as a result of lack of discipline within the Department of Defence,” he said.
Legoete said criminal cases should result in arrests and prosecutions where the evidence supported such action, while matters that did not meet the threshold for criminal prosecution should still be dealt with through internal disciplinary processes.
“We want arrests to be made, that’s why we want prosecutions to be made, and that’s why we want warrants to be issued to those alleged criminals so that they face their day in court,” he said.
He said people involved in criminal activity should not be allowed to remain in the national uniform.
Niehaus welcomed comments from Deputy Minister of Police Shela Boishelo, who said some matters investigated by the Hawks should first have been dealt with internally by the Department of Defence.
Boishelo said policy violations, including an alleged failure to follow vehicle rental procedures, should have been handled through departmental disciplinary processes rather than becoming matters for the Hawks to pursue as criminal cases.
Niehaus said the lack of internal action was a major problem.
“Of course, we are faced with a serious problem that this department is, for all practical purposes, dysfunctional,” Niehaus said.
“Under the circumstances, these internal disciplinary actions do not take place.”
Niehaus called for the committee to demand a detailed report from the Department of Defence on its disciplinary processes, particularly in cases involving officials implicated in alleged wrongdoing.
He said the report should set out which disciplinary matters were being pursued, whether action had been taken, the outcomes and what consequences had been imposed on officials found to have been derelict in their duties.
Niehaus said the committee could not simply be told that a criminal case had been declined by prosecutors without knowing what had happened to the matter internally.
He questioned whether officials implicated in cases that did not result in prosecution were being subjected to departmental consequence management.
Boishelo agreed, saying internal disciplinary matters needed to be dealt with quickly.
“I agree with the Honourable Niehaus that the internal disciplinary matters should be dealt with as quickly as possible,” she said.
She said disciplinary action was not necessarily about destroying an individual, but correcting wrongdoing and imposing an appropriate sanction.
Sunnyside skills programme
Niehaus then raised concerns about the Hawks’ investigation into the Sunnyside skills development programme, which involved five service providers and more than R48 million in payments. He referred to it as a “sewing project”.
The programme was intended to benefit military veterans and their children. The Hawks said 110 witness statements had been taken.
Niehaus questioned the status of the investigation after identifying conflicting information in the Hawks’ presentation.
One section stated that the investigation had been finalised and sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions on 25 August, while the case-specific slide said the prosecutor had retired and a new prosecutor had been allocated on 6 September.
The Hawks said the case had been referred to the DPP, but a change of prosecutor had delayed progress.
The original prosecutor retired and a new prosecutor was appointed on 6 September. Investigators subsequently met the new prosecutor on 7 September for case planning.
The Hawks’ Divisional Commissioner for Operations, Major-General Patrick Mbotho, acknowledged the discrepancy.
“The correct version is that the matter is not finalised because it is receiving guidance from the prosecutor,” Mbotho said.
He said the new prosecutor had issued directives and investigators were complying with them following the case-planning meeting.
Niehaus said the case could not simultaneously be described as finalised while investigators were still working with a new prosecutor.
“A live docket in case planning is not finalised,” he said.
He said the delay was particularly concerning because witnesses linked to the case were under protection.
“There are those who currently are protected witnesses with regards to this matter,” he said.
“Their lives are being disrupted. They are in danger, and it has been acknowledged that they are in danger, therefore they are under witness protection.”
Niehaus said the retirement of the previous prosecutor should not unnecessarily delay the case.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said, calling for the matter to be dealt with “as expeditiously as possible”.
Maponya 911 case
The committee was also briefed on the Maponya 911 case, involving allegations of inflated ambulance invoices between 2016 and 2021.
The Hawks said Maponya 911 had entered into a civil agreement with the Department of Defence to repay R14.8 million and had repaid R2 million through instalments made in November and December.
The Hawks said the DPP had declined to prosecute the matter.
Mbotho stressed that the repayment agreement was a civil matter and fell outside the Hawks’ criminal investigation.
Niehaus questioned whether the repayment arrangement was sufficient.
“A repayment plan, Chair, let us be very clear, is not a prosecution, and it certainly should not be the end of the matter,” he said.
He also questioned whether anyone had faced disciplinary action for allegedly accepting inflated invoices over a five-year period.
“We have not been shown a single official discipline for accepting inflated invoices for five years,” Niehaus said.
Unauthorised vehicle rentals
The third matter involved the Pretoria Central case concerning alleged unauthorised vehicle rentals by the South African Air Force.
The initial allegation was that an official had rented vehicles in their name to the value of about R1.4 million.
The Hawks said the investigation established that the main issue was that the department’s vehicle rental policy had allegedly not been followed.
Because the issue was viewed as a policy matter rather than a criminal offence, the Hawks referred it to the prosecutor, who declined to prosecute.
Mbotho said the matter was therefore considered a departmental issue.
Niehaus questioned why an internal disciplinary process had not followed.
“If the evidence supports only a policy failure, where, Chair, is the disciplinary file?” he asked.
“And even more importantly, because we deal with taxpayers’ money, where is the money?”
He argued that the three matters had not been taken to their logical conclusions, saying cases had instead been “moved, declined, or re-described”.
Mathipa murder investigation
Committee member Christian Hattingh also questioned the Hawks about other investigations that he said had not appeared in previous committee presentations.
These included an investigation into a drone contract involving R41 million, with an advance payment of more than R38 million.
Hattingh also raised concerns about the Hawks’ investigation into the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Frans Mathipa, who was shot and killed on the N1 in 2023 while investigating the alleged kidnapping of suspected ISIS leader Abdella Hussain Abadiga and his bodyguard, Kadir Jemal Abotese, from the Mall of Africa in Midrand.
Twelve SANDF members were arrested in connection with the case and granted bail, which was later revoked by the Gauteng High Court.
Hattingh questioned whether the SANDF and military police had fully complied with requests for documents, access to personnel and assistance in locating accused persons.
Mbotho said the Hawks were receiving the necessary cooperation from the Defence Force and that some of the requested documents had since been received.
He said additional documents had been requested as investigators reviewed the material, but maintained that there was no problem with cooperation between the Hawks and their counterparts.
The Hawks declined to discuss detailed aspects of the Mathipa case because it is before court. The matter is scheduled to return on 1 October.
Mbotho said investigators, the National Prosecuting Authority and Defence Force officials were engaging to resolve operational difficulties.
Hattingh maintained that questions concerning compliance with warrants, access to documents and assistance to investigators were matters for parliamentary oversight and should not simply be dismissed as issues before the courts.
Committee wants consolidated case register
Legoete said the committee would require a consolidated case register covering all cases involving the SANDF and the Department of Defence and Military Veterans.
He said the absence of a single register had contributed to cases being omitted or appearing differently during successive committee briefings.
“We want one register as requested by our members,” Legoete said.
The committee will also seek a report from the Department of Defence on its internal consequence-management processes.
Legoete said the committee needed to know what happened to cases after the Hawks or NPA decided they could not be prosecuted.
“NPA and the Hawks are not the management of the National Defence Force or the Department of Defence,” he said.
“We have our own disciplinary processes.”
The committee also intends to seek clarity from the NPA on decisions to decline prosecution, particularly in cases where investigators interviewed significant numbers of witnesses.
Legoete said the committee did not want to interfere with prosecutorial independence but needed sufficient information to understand why cases involving alleged losses of public money were not proceeding.
“We don’t want to interfere with the independence of prosecution, but to get clarity as an oversight committee,” he said.
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