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New crime intelligence head Major General Dumisani Khumalo was appointed to protect Police Minister Bheki Cele and other senior officers within the police service from criminal investigation.
This damning allegation is contained in an affidavit dated March 3 filed by the suspended Secret Services Account head, Brigadier Tiyani Hlungwani.
In it, Hlungwani alleges that Khumalo, who was appointed in December, was promoted without following normal appointment procedures of the SAPS "because it had to be him that was appointed into this position as he had a job to do, which I believe is to cover up corruption and cases that are investigated against the minister of police, Hamilton Bheki Cele, General Masemola, Lt General Mkhwanazi, Peter Jacobs and other senior officers, as well as Inban Kistiah of I-view Integrated Systems".
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Hlungwani wrote that he was a whistleblower and a witness in the cases that involved Cele’s other top police officers, including the national commissioner, Masemola, KwaZulu-Natal commissioner Mkhwanazi, and Jacobs, a former acting crime intelligence section head, and others. Kistiah is a businessman who sold bullet vests to the police.
The affidavit added:
Hlungwani claimed when he was appointed to the divisional crime intelligence in its Secret Service Account component, he discovered massive systematic theft and corruption involving state funds.
"I made several attempts to address the issue with senior managers to no avail, but instead, I was victimised, harassed, arrested, subjected to frivolous disciplinary processes, hauled before a number of expeditious processes and transferred illegally out of my position. This is still continuing and as I write this statement, I have not been given work by my supervisors for almost four years now," the affidavit read.
Hlungwani, who filed an affidavit in response to an internal disciplinary initiated by Khumalo, alleged that his boss was selective in the application of discipline and only targeted those he wanted out.
Hlungwani wrote that when Khumalo was heading a political killings task team in KwaZulu-Natal, he was not in possession of a valid security clearance, yet he was also allowed to access top-secret classified information, such as the intelligence reports into the death of former ANC Youth League secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa, which involves informants, and other covert highly classified information.
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Police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said the SAPS management was not aware of such an affidavit.
"The SAPS management is not privy to documents that form part of internal processes. If such an affidavit exists, it should be submitted to the relevant authorities for investigation. At this stage, we cannot comment on the contents thereof, which may possibly form part of an ongoing process. It is also prudent to note that a number of the issues mentioned in this affidavit are the subject of ongoing investigations both criminally and departmentally and as such, the SAPS doesn’t comment on ongoing investigations."
