The Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Gauteng postponed the case against the former acting police commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane and his co-accused. The case was postponed to 3 July 2024 for disclosure and for the case to be transferred to the Pretoria Regional Court.
Phahlane served in the position from 15 October 2015 to 1 June 2017 after he was appointed by former President Jacob Zuma after the suspension of former commissioner, Riah Phiyega. Postponing the case, the state was ordered to disclose an outstanding document to one defence attorney by 17 May 2024.
Investigating Directorate spokesperson, Henry Mamothame, said that Phahlane and his co-accused, Lieutenant-Colonel Godfrey Mahwayi, Major-General Maanda Obert Nemutandzhela, Major-General Mankosana Agnes Makhele, businessmen Inbanathan Kistiah and Avendra Naidoo are facing charges of fraud, corruption, theft and contravention of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) relating to two contracts valued at approximately R54 million.
"Their court appearance emanates from incidents of October 2015, where university students embarked on the Fees Must Fall protests with police dispatched to stabilise the violent unrest. It is alleged that on 21 December 2016, SAPS crime intelligence division embarked on an emergency procurement of software tools or systems which was intended to collect and monitor information from social media platforms on the instigators of the student protests. It however emerged that these 'emergency' response measures came about in December 2016 ,when the protest had started in October 2015," he said.
Mamothame said that the police top brass and their cronies allegedly attempted to purchase a software from a company that was not involved in software engineering but was a security alarms and surveillance cameras company. "It further emerged that the owners of the competing companies were friends, who in fact were involved in cover quoting. The cover quoting was supplied to Inbanathan Kistiah by the former husband of the sole director of a company called Perfect Source, which was a human resource recruitment company," Mamothane added.
He also said that another mobile communication encryption software known as Daedalus, which was solely used for encrypting calls and wiping out cellphone records and messages was procured through deviation from standard procurement processes. The contract was signed on the same day and the payment was made on December 22, a day after approval. The software was also used to encrypt voice calls made by SAPS management at the time when Phahlane was under investigation by IPID for the R191 million blue lights police tender and other irregular procurement at the time he was acting police commissioner. Mamothame said that all the accused are out on bail and are expected back in court in July when the matter resumes.
