An investigation into National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele’s alleged involvement in a property deal might be one of the tasks of the new body formed to investigate improprieties in the police force, an Institute of Security Studies (ISS) researcher said on Thursday.
“With a new mandate to investigate corruption, the new Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) may be asked to investigate allegations against Cele,” said Institute for Security Studies researcher Andrew Faull.
He was speaking during the seminar organised to discuss the IPID’s role of fighting corruption in the police force.
It will replace the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) before the end of this year.
Faull said all eyes would be on the IPID to act on Cele, saying that the ICD had failed to investigate allegations of corruption against former police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
He said former Airports Company South Africa chief of security, Paul O’Sullivan, had given the ICD information for investigation on Selebi.
“The ICD cleared Selebi without investigating. O’Sullivan took the information to the Scorpions (now disbanded), which secured a conviction,” he said, referring to Selebi’s eventual 15-year prison sentence, which he intends appealing.
ICD spokesman Moses Dlamini said the information that O’Sullivan gave them was not the same as the information he gave to the Scorpions.
“The information he took to the Scorpions was more comprehensive compared with the report he gave to us,” he said.
The Sunday Times reported in August that Cele signed a deal to move the police’s top brass, including Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, to businessman Roux Shabangu’s 18-storey building almost two months before Shabangu bought it.
The newspaper said the deal never went out to tender, in breach of Treasury regulations that all contracts over R500 000 must go through a competitive bid process.
The lease transaction was put on hold by Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge after the story was carried.
