Crime Intelligence head Khumalo refutes state capture claims during parliamentary inquiry

Crime Intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo on Friday dismissed a suggestion that he was involved in a project of state capture when he was arrested last year with six of his colleagues over the appointment of an official in his division.

Testifying before the Ad Hoc Committee, Khumalo stated that he was simply implementing the recommendations from the Zondo Commission pertaining to his division.

“But in terms of me being involved in capturing the state, it's a big no,” he said.

Khumalo was responding to ANC MP Khusela Sangoni-Diko, who stated that Investigative Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) head Andrea Johnson had testified that the case brought against him was not a purely labour matter as the appointment of Brigadier Dineo Mokwele in a senior position was allegedly part and parcel of an attempt to capture the state.

Johnson had told the Ad Hoc Committee probing allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi that they looked at the cumulative effect of the complaint by National Coloured Congress leader and MP Fadiel Adams as amounting to state capture.

“They grouped themselves in a way to achieve a particular agenda to gratify Brigadier Mokwele with a post which she was neither qualified nor have requisite experience because she needed to be placed in a strategic position and indebt her to the accused for whatever they require in the future,” she said.

Johnson had been responding to Mkhwanazi when he accused IDAC of turning the appointment into a big corruption issue when they arrested Khumalo and six other accused.

According to Khumalo, the charge relating to his arrest was a result of being part of the selection panel that received the already profiled applications from human resources department to take them through the selection process.

“That ended up with the recommendations submitted to the committee that then looked at our procedure, whether it was correct or wrong, up until the recommendation.”

He insisted that the charges have got nothing to do with state capture.

“The only witnesses that are there are the two candidates that did not make it, which is in the form of a grievance statement or procedure in the SAPS. There is nothing else that talks to fraud or corruption,” Khumalo said.

He also said he agreed with Mkhwanazi that their arrest was a project to disrupt the work of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) and the reforms he was implementing in his division.

Responding to EFF leader Julius Malema earlier, Khumalo told the Ad Hoc Committee that when he was arrested, he looked back at the investment he had done to his integrity for past 34 years.

“The campaign was targeting both PKTT and myself because I am in charge of the division and the PKTT,” he said.

Khumalo was arrested at the airport by IDAC junior officials in the absence of the senior investigating officer.

Recalling the arrest, he said: “The junior officers were called to come. I am the only one not called and was arrested at the airport.”

During his testimony, Khumalo ascribed his and PKTT’s problems to the decision he took to conduct a counter-intelligence operation in Gauteng last year after a senior state prosecutor in the murder of Vereenging engineer Armand Swarts wrote to the provincial police and national commissioners highlighting threats that the investigation and investigation officers were facing.

He had brought in a highly specialised team from the PKTT to assist the Gauteng Organised Crime Unit in the investigations, as well as the task team’s combat unit and Special Task Force for take-down operations upon realising the province’s officers worked for criminal syndicates outside their official hours.

“The PKTT has suffered, and continues to suffer, for providing that assistance. It created the false impression that the PKTT was overstepping its mandate to investigate the cartel, when in reality, they were brought in solely to neutralise the internal threat and provide security because the local teams could not be trusted,” said Khumalo.

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za