- This article was updated at 7pm on Tuesday to reflect a joint statement from Parliament: The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration has acceded to a request from the Portfolio Committee on Police to refer the allegations against Major General Patrick Mbotho from the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for an urgent and in-depth investigation. Full statement can be read here.
Earlier this month, the chair of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron, wrote to Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, National Commissioner Fanie Masemola and Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) head, General Godfrey Lebeya, expressing concern about this crucial appointment.
The committee has since written to the Public Service and Administration Committee and a joint statement on the matter was released on Tuesday (1 October) confirming that the appointment was referred to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for an urgent and in-depth investigation.
Mbotho was recently appointed by Lebeya as divisional commissioner: national priority offences with the DPCI – a promotion that should not have been forthcoming considering the major general’s integrity was “certainly not beyond reproach”, said Cameron.
The police portfolio committee called for Mbotho’s appointment to be reviewed.
In 2018, Mbotho was “sanctioned” for an “incident” while he was head of detectives in the Western Cape. This was for a pornographic video he sent to a work group.
Mbotho has also been implicated for having alleged links to Western Cape underworld boss Nafiz Modack, who is currently on trial in the Western Cape High Court on several charges relating to organised crime and its nexus with dirty cops.
He replaced Major General Jeremy Vearey as the province’s head of detectives, effectively decapitating “Project Impi” and the nationwide “guns to gangs” operation.
Decorated Anti-Gang Unit detective, Lieutenant Charl Kinnear, who was part of Project Impi, was assassinated outside his home on 18 September 2020 while investigating Modack as well as some of his own colleagues.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) has criticised the DPCI in an investigation into Kinnear’s murder.
Lebeya not in the clear
The directorate made scathing findings that Lebeya should be sanctioned for his role in failing to protect Kinnear’s life, since the Hawks had been tipped off that the detective was being monitored.
Ipid found: “[He] failed to ensure that the DPCI members implicated investigated the threat against the state and therefore failed to protect the national interest or security of the state.”
Read more: ‘Pinging Kinnear’: Hawks’ head Godfrey Lebeya failed to protect national security and the top detective
The DPCI, Ipid found, had failed to act on an audit by a wholesaler of phone tracking “pings” that had been conducted on 3 September 2020, 15 days before Kinnear was murdered and which had been reported to the Hawks.
Concerned that Kinnear’s life was in danger, the person alleged that he had arranged to meet a warrant officer who dealt with crimes against the state. This officer had instructed the individual “to continue the facilitation of the illegal monitoring”.
Two days before Kinnear was murdered, the Ipid report said, the individual and warrant officer “had a fall-out… after the ‘pings’ had further increased in frequency and times and no results had been forthcoming”.
Bullying and intimidation charges
The trauma of Brigadier Sonja Harri of the hard-working SAPS Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences unit, which fell under Vearey’s command, is recorded in desperate letters to her superiors about Mbotho’s treatment.
Harri was well known for her expertise in guiding detectives to solve many murders, including that of Anene Booysen.
In letters to former police minister Bheki Cele, which Daily Maverick has read, she pleaded with him to intervene, saying Mbotho had begun to victimise her. Harri eventually retired, suffering ill-health as a result of what she described as a sustained campaign of harassment by Mbotho.
Mbotho’s reply to Daily Maverick with regard to the allegations at the time was a short: “What I do best is to fight crime.”
Back in 2015, former acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane had made several appointments in the SAPS Western Cape top structure, sidelining Vearey as well as then Western Cape Crime Intelligence head, Major General Peter Jacobs.
The portfolio committee asked who the other applicants were for the post, who was shortlisted, who was on the recruitment panel, whether Mbotho actually had security clearance and who perused Mbotho’s record in the provinces to which he had been deployed.
Cameron said Mbotho’s appointment “tarnished the reputation and integrity of the police service as a whole”.
Lebeya has defended the appointment, saying Mbotho was the best candidate for the job. DM