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Former Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) head Andrea Johnson pulled all stops to get national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola charged, including wanting to trick him to “lie” before parliament, according to evidence placed before the Madlanga commission.
State advocate Drushantha Ramsamy testified at the commission yesterday that Johnson’s leadership had “orchestrated attacks” against Masemola and crime intelligence head Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo.
Ramsamy told the commission about a meeting that took place in January 2022 in which Johnson told her team to keep Masemola in the dark about the directorate’s investigations into the KwaZulu-Natal political killings team and probe into police crime intelligence.
“Adv Johnson said that the national commissioner (Gen Masemola) should not be informed of the investigation. ”She said the national commissioner would appear at the portfolio committee on policing soon and we should ‘let him lie’ at the portfolio committee,” Ramasamy said.
Unaware of the investigation, Ramsamy said, Masemola would then presumably be caught in a “lie” when asked by MPs about the matter, before the committee chaired by DA MP Ian Cameron.
“It looked and became evident that there was a line of march and that line of march was to get generals Khumalo and Masemola in an accused box. At some point, there was some talk: ‘if he lies we can at least charge him’,” Ramsamy said.
Commissioner Sandile Khumalo asked whether it was a “set-up” for Masemola. “Correct,” Ramasamy responded.
She told the commission that crime intelligence boss Feroz Khan provided information to the directorate’s investigators in the probe into crime intelligence matters.
Khan faced internal disciplinary proceedings within crime intelligence when he was providing information in the build-up of a criminal case against his colleagues to the directorate.
“On 23 January 2025, Messrs [Dylan] Perumal and [Brian] Padayachee gave feedback on a consultation held with Maj-Gen Khan. They informed us that Khan told them that Gen Khumalo did not have top secret clearance,” she said.
She said according to Khan, notwithstanding the absence of top secret clearance, Masemola called Khan and told him to give Khumalo support and follow up on the vetting process of Khumalo.
“Mr Perumal seemed to think that this was compelling evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Masemola,” Ramsamy said.
Ramsamy also testified that one of Idac’s biggest cases of the R228m police tender, which was awarded to Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala, followed an irregular process.
She said the directorate started doing investigations on the matter without having an affidavit referring the matter to Idac.
“What I do know is that a section 28(1) in respect of the Medicare 24 matter was authorised on 16 May 2025 and this could have been used to obtain the downloads of Mr Matlala’s devices on 30 May 2025, but as I deal with later, I suspect that Adv Johnson and Mr Perumal knew that the Medicare 24 investigation was unlawful from inception,” Ramsamy said.
The case of corruption against Matlala and SAPS officers is one of the biggest cases handled by the directorate. − Business Day
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