Durban - KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) provincial police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni’s association with controversial Durban businessman, Thoshan Panday, has come back to haunt her.
Acting national police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane, has decided to establish a board of inquiry into Ngobeni’s fitness to hold office.
Read: A very corrupt relationship
The Sunday Tribune’s sister newspaper, the Sunday Independent, has seen letters from the Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko, one to KZN Premier Senzo Mchunu, and another to the province’s MEC for Community Safety and Liaison Willies Mchunu, in which they are informed that Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane has served her with a notice of suspension, pending the finalisation of the board.
The letter said Phahlane took the decision after receiving a report from the acting executive director of the Independent Investigative Directorate (Ipid) relating to alleged systematic corruption cases in KZN.
“The Provincial Commissioner, KwaZulu-Natal as well as other officers are implicated in the said corruption,” said part of the letter.
Ngobeni’s suspension is a result of an independent forensic audit which apparently showed a “possible corrupt relationship” between her and Panday.
This was alleged in an affidavit filed in the Durban High Court in December 2014 by then provincial Hawks head Major-General Johan Booysen.
At the time he filed the affidavit in support of an urgent application to interdict the now suspended national police commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, from dismissing him.
In the affidavit, Booysen alleged that, apart from police investigations which revealed a connection between Ngobeni and Panday, an audit was done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Read: Panday’s millions
Advocate Nazeer Cassim SC, who presided over Booysen’s disciplinary inquiry, found there was evidence that Ngobeni repeatedly interfered in a R60 million police tender fraud investigation involving Panday and a policeman, Navin Madhoe.
Ngobeni was also a suspect in a corruption probe into allegations that Panday paid for her policeman-husband Brigadier Lucas Ngobeni’s birthday party in 2011.
Ngobeni allegedly burst into tears when confronted by police watchdog Ipid’s investigators about her alleged “corrupt” relationship with Panday.
While she brandished receipts - saying she had paid Panday to organise a birthday party for her husband - she refused to give the investigators copies of those receipts.
Booysen alleged there was a plot to oust him because he trod on the wrong toes by keeping alive an investigation into Panday’s alleged role in the R60m police accommodation fraud during the 2010 soccer World Cup.
He also alleged that Ngobeni instructed him to stop the investigation and, soon after, Panday paid for her husband’s birthday party. He said that an independent forensic audit revealed “a possible corrupt relationship” between her and Panday.
She claimed she had been cleared of wrongdoing and the criminal case opened against her with regard to the birthday party had been closed.
Ngobeni said she did not want to comment. Mchunu’s spokesman Ndabe Sibiya said the premier did not want to comment and referred questions to the SAPS.
Mchunu’s spokesman Kwanele Ncalane said the MEC was not in a position to speak on such a matter.
It has been alleged KZN provincial police commissioner General Mmamonnye Ngobeni has a 'possible corrupt relationship' with controversial Durban businessman Thoshan Panday.
The case against Ngobeni
* Ipid alleges that she was informed about the financial irregularities within the supply chain management of the SAPS KwaZulu-Natal Provincial office involving R60 million. She however failed to order an investigation.
* Instead of commissioning an investigation, she ordered that investigations that had already begun be stopped.
* On five different occasions, she ordered that an investigation that was already in progress under the supervision of the Hawks be stopped.
* Colonel Navin Madhoe was arrested for bribery following the investigations into the financial irregularities.
* During Madhoe’s arrest, investigators found the investigation report implicating him (Madhoe) in the alleged corrupt procurement processes, hidden in the boot of his vehicle. The report implicating Madhoe was given to Commissioner Ngobeni in confidence by then KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head.
* Instead of Ngobeni continuing with the disciplinary process against Madhoe, she placed him back at supply chain management that was already under investigation. By reinstating him, Ipid alleges that Ngobeni ignored the fact that Madhoe could have potentially interfered with the investigation.
* A PriceWaterhouseCoopers money-trail analysis conclusively linked Ngobeni, Madhoe, Narainpershad and Panday in a corrupt relationship.
* Ngobeni elected to remain silent when offered an opportunity to explain her involvement.
Again suspended
Former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Johan Booysen had been suspended and reinstated several times in the past, before he was again unceremoniously replaced earlier this year.
Booysen was previously suspended and accused of running a criminal enterprise consisting of members of the former Cato Manor Organised Crime Unit that he then headed.
In February last year, Durban High Court Judge Trevor Gorven threw out the charges against Booysen. The judge went on to describe deputy national director of public prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba’s decision to charge Booysen as “arbitrary, offending the principle of legality and, therefore, the rule of law and unconstitutional”.
In his judgment, Gorven agreed with Booysen’s assertion that Jiba had lied about having certain statements before her when she decided to prosecute, and could therefore not have used them to make her decision.
Jiba was set to go on trial in August on charges which related to her decision to prosecute Booysen on racketeering charges. Charges against Jiba were inexplicably withdrawn in August by the new Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams.
The Sunday Independent
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