Retired Hawks colonel details how investigation into Thoshan Panday was squashed

Leaders of SAPS’s supply chain management unit allegedly orchestrated dodgy contracts to be awarded to controversial businessman Thoshan Panday during the 2010 FIFA World Cup — and then top cops pressured officers to drop investigations into Panday and the implicated SAPS officials.

Testifying at the Zondo commission on Wednesday, retired Hawks Colonel Johannes van Loggerenberg detailed the allegations against Panday and how then KwaZulu-Natal SAPS provincial commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni and prosecutors went to extensive lengths to ensure investigations into the alleged corruption collapsed.

Panday scored a plum contract to accommodate SAPS members during the World Cup after the police supply chain procurement unit delayed issuing the tender and awarded the deal to Panday on an emergency basis.

Van Loggerenberg said Panday inflated the prices of accommodation by between 200% and 400%. The Durban-based businessman, who has been linked to powerful politicians such as relatives of Jacob Zuma, reportedly scored R60-million from the deals.

Van Loggerenberg said SAPS supply chain manager Colonel Navin Madhoe had been meeting with Panday for months, but issued a memo looking for hotels to accommodate officers only days before they were needed, meaning proper procurement processes could be avoided. Other hotels bid for the tender, but Madhoe allegedly neglected them and awarded the deal to Panday.

Madhoe also helped Panday register his companies on SAPS’s supplier database. After Panday gave him the documents, Madhoe had another officer drive from KZN to Pretoria to register the companies the next day.

“They offered the inflated tender to Panday, who had initially said he had already booked his 10 hotels to accommodate the police officers,” said Van Loggerenberg.

Panday, however, didn’t own any hotels, said the retired colonel.

“He went on to book the officers in the same hotels that had made bids that were never evaluated by Madhoe and pocketed the rest of the money.”

That wasn’t Panday’s only deal with SAPS. Van Loggerenberg said he also supplied generators to the police. Investigations showed he purchased each for R4,900 and then sold each to the police for between R92,000 and R97,000.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Van Loggerenberg.

He and his colleagues investigated Panday’s deals and also had PWC analyse Panday and other implicated parties’ financial statements.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” said Van Loggerenberg.

Investigators found senior SAPS officers had taken benefits from Panday. Provincial commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni held a surprise birthday party for her husband, a SAPS brigadier, at the restaurant Dish in Umhlanga Rocks— Panday paid the R10,000 deposit and the balance of the bill for the event.

Panday allegedly bought Madhoe a vehicle and paid for his family to go on a holiday in Cape Town.

Former Hawks KZN head Johan Booysen told the Zondo commission in 2019 how officers, starting with Madhoe, tried to intimidate him into dropping the case against Panday and other implicated SAPS members. Van Loggerenberg, one of the lead investigators, explained on Wednesday how some of his superiors and NPA prosecutors did all they could to ensure the case was abandoned.

Ngobeni, one of the implicated suspects, repeatedly told them to drop the case. She was also irritated that the investigating team had been reporting directly to Hawks head Anwar Dramat, who believed there was sufficient evidence to continue pursuing the case.

NPA prosecutors who worked on the case were also reluctant to proceed, but couldn’t explain why they would not act on the available evidence.

Van Loggerenberg said prosecutor Abby Letsholo decided not to prosecute Panday and the implicated officers after Panday made representations to the NPA, which the investigating team never saw. Panday claimed evidence had been gathered from intercepting his communications without approval, which Van Loggerenberg called “an absolute lie”.

The retired colonel said he was warned during his investigations that Panday wanted to assassinate his investigating team. He said he received two calls from a woman claiming to work for Panday who said she had overheard him saying he wanted to “take out” the investigating officers.

Panday and Madhoe were charged for allegedly trying to bribe Booysen in 2011 with R2-million to falsify a report on the dodgy World Cup accommodation deals, but the charges were dropped. The charges were reinstated by former NPA head Shaun Abrahams in 2016, but none of the implicated parties has appeared in court.

The State Capture inquiry continues on Thursday and will hear further evidence relating to law enforcement agencies. DM