Private investigator Paul O’Sullivan has described Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s July 6 press briefing as being dishonest, divisive and intended to distract attention from what he said was going on within the KwaZulu-Natal police.
O’Sullivan, who returned before Parliament’s ad hoc committee on Thursday, was responding to questions posed by DA MP Ian Cameron, who asked about O’Sullivan’s comments that Mkhwanazi was not qualified to wear the task force uniform on the day of the press briefing.
Cameron told O’Sullivan that Mkhwanazi was entitled to wear that uniform.
However, O’Sullivan said Mkhwanazi was not a task force member at the time of the press briefing.
“He had previously been a task force member some years before that. The point I made at the time is that you’ve got a person dressed in task force combat uniform and you are not a task force member, you were some years prior to that.
“In my opinion — and this is my personal opinion — and bearing in mind that at that stage I knew already of his alleged involvement trying to sabotage the investigation into Gen [Khomotso] Phahlane by soliciting and hiring people from Ipid [Independent Police Investigative Directorate] to come and work in the police and leave Ipid and, in return, give information against [then Ipid boss] Robert McBride."
READ| ‘I’m not here for a kangaroo court,’ complains Paul O’Sullivan
O’Sullivan said although he did not have specific prima facie evidence, there was a media article identifying a relationship between national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola and Mkhwanazi dating back to 2012 when an alleged amount of R35m was spent on buying luxury motor cars without going through a tender processes.
“I made the comment that appearing at a 6 July media conference with eight armed men with automatic weapons, dressed in combat uniforms and masks...was it a media conference or was it an operation that was going to take place?”
He said Mkhwanazi’s briefing gave the impression that it was creating a distraction for the alleged criminal activity taking place within crime intelligence.
“I think that is a fact and it will be proven, and it will [unfold] when we see the criminal trial of the five generals and two brigadiers from crime intelligence.
“I have no axe to grind with any of the generals in the police. But the reality of it, that media conference was not only dishonest, it was divisive, and it was intended to distract attention from what has been going on in the police in KZN,” he said.
O’Sullivan also told the MPs that there should be probative tests carried out on all candidates for senior appointments.
He said if there were tests, then Masemola and Phahlane would not have been police chiefs.
He said the common law offence of abuse of public office needed to be developed in SA.
Sowetan
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