By Marcus Moloko
Crime Intelligence boss Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo told Parliament’s ad hoc committee on Thursday that investigators had grounds to suspect suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya of wrongdoing, and said an arrest was a possibility.
Khumalo made the statements while being questioned by MK Party MP Vusi Shongwe about the disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), a decision that triggered the committee’s inquiry.
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Shongwe asked if Khumalo trusted Sibiya and whether there was reasonable police intelligence that could lead to Sibiya’s arrest.
“There are possibilities,” said Khumalo.
Khumalo and Shongwe’s interaction at the ad hoc committee follows testimony at that committee and the Madlanga Commission, where witnesses linked Sibiya to corruption involving R1.2 billion in SAPS tenders.
Testifying before the Madlanga Commission last year, “Witness C” alleged that Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala – who received a R360 million SAPS health services contract – told him Sibiya and KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major General Lesetja Senona were secretly paid multimillion-rand kickbacks.
Witness C claimed that Matlala would pay Sibiya after receiving payments from SAPS.
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“We didn’t know why he was giving us all this information, but he was detailed and confident about it,” Witness C told the commission at the time.
The R360 million portion of the R1.2 billion tender was cancelled in May by National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola, who declared that the company should never have passed the initial bidding stage.
Meanwhile, Sibiya has accused top SAPS leaders of lying under oath to the Madlanga Commission, demanding the right to cross-examine Masemola and KZN police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi over claims linking him to the R1.2 billion tender package and the dismantling of the PKTT.
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Continuing his testimony on Thursday, Khumalo elaborated on dubious requests where he was forced to compile a report regarding the disbandment of the PKTT.
“The most concerning aspects that I was expected to include in the report, according to the deputy national commissioner, was to include the stakeholders’ feedback from the organisations such as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), in response to the announcement of the disbandment. In other words, I was supposed to ask them ‘how do you feel. How did you take it?’, and then write back the report, which I find very [shocking] for me to do,” said Khumalo.
Khumalo also told the ad hoc committee that almost the whole of SAPS in Gauteng was working for a criminal cartel.
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