Former top cop appears in court on R54 million fraud and corruption charges
6 May 2024
The Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crime Court postponed the case against the former acting police commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane and his co-accused, to 03 July 2024 for disclosure and to be transferred to the Pretoria Regional Court. The state was ordered to disclose an outstanding document to one defense attorney by 17 May 2024.
Phahlane, Lieutenant-Colonel Godfrey Mahwayi, Major-General Maanda Obert Nemutandzhela, Major-General Mankosana Agnes Makhele and 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, wherein university students embarked on the #FeesMustFall protests, with police dispatched to stabilise the violent unrest. It is alleged that on 21 December 2016, the South African Police Service (SAPS) Crime Intelligence Division embarked on an emergency procurement of software tools or systems. One of the softwares, RIPJAR, 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. Furthermore, they allegedly attempted to purchase RIPJAR 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 and in truth 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.