The rot in police crime intelligence is escalating, with allegations of farmworkers registered as agents while they work on farms bought with slush funds looted by corrupt officers.
More corrupt top cops are expected to be arrested and suspended in the next few months.
Top crime intelligence officials allegedly bought farms using the slush funds and registered their farm workers as agents so their salaries could be drawn from the secret services account.
The Sunday Independent understands that most of the farms are in KwaZulu-Natal.
Crime intelligence spends millions annually on farmworkers disguised as agents.
This is alleged to have been happening over several years.
Police spokesman Brigadier Lindela Mashigo said “those would be the matters that will be unearthed by the ongoing probe if there is such”.
The latest corruption revelation involving the slush fund comes after the suspension of the chief financial officer of the secret service account, Major General Solly Lazarus, a few weeks ago.
He is also accused of looting the slush fund.
The Sunday Independent has been reliably informed that Lazarus had been frustrated at work after making a comeback to the offices in February.
“For the months he spent at work prior to his re-suspension, he never sat in his office nor touched the secret service account,” a source said, adding that Lazarus’s office was occupied by Brigadier Obed Nemutanzhela, the section head of financial and administration services in the secret service account, who stood in for him during the suspension.
“When Lazarus demanded his office back, Nemutanzhela asked him to produce a letter instructing him to vacate the office.
“Lazarus couldn’t produce one, and ended up sitting in an empty office,” the source said.
Nemutanzhela referred all questions to the police spokesman, but Mashigo declined to comment.
Lazarus could not be reached for comment.
Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the former acting national police commissioner, was a few weeks ago named in a top secret report due to be handed to the parliemantary joint standing committee on intelligence, for splurging R35 million on luxury vehicles.
Mkhwanazi denied that these were luxury cars, but admitted buying 149 cars to the value of R35m, saying they were for operations and had been distributed to the provinces and the national office.
Colonel Vishnu Naidoo said in the 2011/2012 financial year crime intelligence spent: R17.332m in the first quarter on 79 vehicles (15 replacements and 64 new), R14.436m in the second quarter on 61 vehicles (46 replacements and 15 new), R13.908m in the third quarter for 61 vehicles (36 replacements and 25 new) and R35.291 million on the fourth quarter on 149 vehicles (40 replacements and 109 new).
The new national police commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, has promised to root out corruption in the force.
Sunday Independent