Police tech head Lieutenant-General Adeline Shezi allegedly spent SAPS millions on house construction

The dust had barely settled over the controversial but ultimately over-ridden switch-off by Forensic Data Analysts (FDA), in the private company’s pay dispute with the SAPS of key police information technology systems for property and exhibit management and firearm permits, when the allegations arose.

On Thursday the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) confirmed it is investigating corruption allegations against technology management service head Lieutenant-General Adeline Shezi. And the SAPS confirmed its national police commissioner had requested internal investigations into this matter. Shezi told Daily Maverick she had not been formally informed or charged, but has been called to human resources:

“They’ve made an appointment for Monday.”

In the world of procurement, contracting connections are frequently obscured, and it can take years before corruption, fraud and mismanagement emerge and are unravelled, even when constitutional oversight bodies such as parliamentary committees get involved over deep concerns about police’s contract management.

Often an intricate convergence of actors, incidents and issues creates a perfect storm. This became clear in the parliamentary State Capture at Eskom. In the SAPS technology management service contract saga it involves FDA, headed by former police officer Keith Keating, which since 2010 obtained contracts valued at R5.1-billion and the connected company, Unisys, that is represented by Jerenique Bayard. Keating is publicly linked in IPID investigations to former acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane, himself under investigation for corruption and fraud by the police watchdog over how he financed his home and vehicles for himself and his wife Brigadier Beauty Phahlane and Colonel Johann Potgieter, both of whom are working within the police’s technology management service division.

FDA’s relations with SAPS technology management service popped up on IPID’s radar while investigating Phahlane for dodgy dealings with forensic chemical supplier Kriminalistik and Crimetech. These technology contract probes also include for the supply of Rofin forensic torches, as Daily Maverick previously reported.

It appears that police forensics chiefs like to have house upgrades done at others’ expense. Like Phahlane, Shezi is now fingered for allegedly using outside money associated with SAPS contractors for house construction.

Documents seen by Daily Maverick on what is dubbed “Project Khulisa” reflect a series of payments totalling R2,177,572.47 from mid-2015 to early 2016 to a construction company for building a house for Shezi. These payments include two by Shezi, totalling R614,513.72.

One of the contributing companies, Intsika Distributors – it made three payments totalling R793,059.75 on one day in July 2015, according to the document – is linked to Unisys’ Bayard. Unisys is contracted to FDA and was publicly named as the sponsor of the October 2011 trip by two TMS police officers to the Manchester United game at Old Trafford, together with Keating and Bayard.

It was DA MP Tim Brauteseth who blew the lid off this Pandora’s box at a meeting of Parliament’s public spending watchdog, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), in November 2017.

DA’s Tim Brauteseth – himself a former forensic investigator – lead what turned into a deep and unexpected interrogation of SAPS and SITA and how both these institutions have been corroded by wide-scale corruption and malfeasance. (SABC)

Photo: FDA’s Keith Keating and Jerenique Bayard with SAPS Supply Chain Management members, all in customised Manchester United shirts, in front of the Old Trafford in October 2011.