KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi says he is concerned about the safety of Gauteng counterintelligence officers whose safe house has been exposed.
Mkhwanazi was testifying before parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating allegations of corruption in the criminal justice system when he was asked about the safety of the political killings task team.
They can’t go home; if they go home, they go with the entire delegation of police officers protecting them.
— Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner
He said he was not worried about the team but about the Gauteng counterintelligence officers.
“I worry about their safety,” he said, accusing DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard of publishing the details of the officers’ safe house in a media statement.
“[The task team] is in KZN, [but] at least they have me and the rest of the men and women in blue — [so] they should be safe, [but] I cannot guarantee the [safety of the] Gauteng team.”
Mkhwanazi said the task team’s vehicles were exposed in public, and to some degree their names might be known.
“Their safety for me is a concern. They can’t go home; if they go home, they go with the entire delegation of police officers protecting them. So their lives [are] disrupted and their families. I don’t think they are protected.”
He called for an investigation by state security into the leaks of secrets to the media.
Kohler Barnard has previously dismissed the claims.
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, she said she was looking forward to hearing Mkhwanazi’s testimony before the ad hoc committee and hoped he would apologise and retract the claim he made on the initial day of the Madlanga commission when he said she had broken the law.
However, on Tuesday, during his first day of testifying to the ad hoc committee, Mkhwanazi said: “I am apologising that the honourable member had forgotten the oath that she took. I apologise for that. She took an oath, [and] that oath has an expiry date according to her.
“The honourable member forgot she took an oath before South Africans in parliament not to divulge the secrets of government, and she forgot about the oath — I apologise for that.”
On Wednesday, Mkhwanazi told the committee there were many wrong things happening in the police service.
He gave an example of an officer who owned a farm, employed people there, and registered them as agents with the police so that they could earn a salary from crime intelligence’s secret fund account.
He said the police had dealt with the same issue in 2011, but it was continuing.
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