Former acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane. Picture: File
FORMER acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane is in hot water yet again, after the police on Tuesday swooped on his Kameeldrift home and arrested him over allegations related to a tender estimated at R54 million while he was still in office.
It is alleged that Phahlane was instrumental in the payment of millions of rand, which benefited a Durban-based company Brainwave Projects 1323 CC, trading as I-View Integrated Systems, contracted for social media monitoring of #FeesMustFall protests.
The Pretoria News was reliably told that Phahlane was nabbed on Tuesday at his home.
One of those arrested for the alleged crime was businessman Inbanathan Kistiah, who is in charge of the implicated company. Kistiah was arrested on Monday.
The pair are due to appear at the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crime Court today to face criminal charges linked to the R54m unauthorised expenditure.
Forensic investigator and crime-buster Paul O’Sullivan, who blew the whistle on the arrests, told the Pretoria News that “this is not the end” for Phahlane and that “there is more that is coming”.
Without divulging more information, he said: “We have been looking at Phahlane now for seven years, and he will be facing more music. He is in trouble. He picked a fight with the wrong man.”
National SAPS spokesperson Colonel Athlenda Mathe referred media queries on the arrest to the Independent Directorate (ID).Contacted for comment, ID spokesperson Sindisiwe Seboka said two current serving majors-general and one former lieutenant-general in the SAPS were arrested.
She did not disclose the names of the suspects, but it is known that Phahlane held the title of lieutenant-general when he was still in the police force.
According to Seboka, six people were arrested on Monday and on Tuesday afternoon in connection with a police tender of more than R54m from 2016.
“The suspects were arrested in Durban, Bloemfontein and various areas around Pretoria, while two were arrested as they were boarding domestic flights from OR Tambo International Airport to Cape Town and Durban,” she said.
Among the suspects were two businessmen based in Durban, Phahlane, a current serving lieutenant-colonel and two majors-general from Pretoria and Bloemfontein.
Seboka said those arrested were due in the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on Wednesday on charges of fraud, corruption and theft.
She said the arrests were a result of joint stakeholder co-operation between the ID and Ipid secondments assigned to the ID.
In August, Phahlane and other SAPS officials implicated in the R191 million “blue light” tender had their assets, including 19 properties and 115 vehicles amounting to R75 million confiscated. The tender was for supplying and installations of blue lights on Gauteng police vehicles and said to be corruptly awarded by the SAPS to a service provider, Instrumentation for Traffic Law Enforcement.
Pretoria News