Crime Intelligence Division boss Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli told Parliament – in November last year – everything it needs to know about claims that he raided the police’s secret service account, he said on Wednesday.
But whatever was disclosed to MPs behind closed doors will not be shared with the public.
The Star caught up with the controversial general as he slipped out of a meeting of Parliament’s police committee on Wednesday to attend a meeting of the secretive joint standing committee on intelligence (JSCI).
Asked to confirm earlier comments by acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi that he was still the subject of an internal police investigation, Mdluli said: “No, I cannot confirm that.
“I don’t know anything about that. I know nothing about that. Now I am back at work. I was investigated enough – first criminal and then departmental. That is why I am back at work,” he said.
And when he was asked to respond to the allegations about the secret slush fund, the general said: “No, I can’t respond.
“As you see me now, I am on my way to the JSCI. Those are covert matters and I can’t discuss it in a public domain. That (the intelligence committee) is where I am going to respond to most of these allegations,” he said, adding that he had in fact already done so in November.
“I already gave them (the JSCI) my responses (to the allegations) and they know exactly what is happening,” Mdluli said, before rushing off to the meeting.
Committee chairman Cecil Burgess (ANC) confirmed on Wednesday night that Mdluli had attended Wednesday’s meeting but declined to provide further details.
Asked whether Mdluli had simply attended or whether he had briefed the committee, Burgess would say only Mdluli was at the meeting.
Mkhwanazi had earlier told the police committee that Mdluli was still the subject of an internal departmental investigation in relation to the secret service account fund claims, but also declined to elaborate.
Mdluli is also implicated – in an internal police investigation report – of instructing subordinates to employ 23 members of his family to the police’s covert agent programme, despite their having no prior police experience. Some were appointed to the high rank of colonel.
Meanwhile, the police committee, chaired by Sindi Chikunga (ANC,) tore into the crime intelligence Division, with several MPs suggesting SA wasn’t getting bang for the division’s 2.5 billion bucks.
“We are saying that crime intelligence is weak and we are not getting value for money,” said Chikunga.
She also said that, since 2010, she and her committee had been trying in vain to get more details out of the police about what goes on at the division. - Political Bureau