Tina Joemat-Pettersson, chair of the police committee in parliament, is back in the spotlight in connection with irregular payments for state projects. Joemat-Pettersson is an ally of former president Jacob Zuma, who was at the centre of corruption allegations under his rule. Joemat-Pettersson is the former energy minister who pushed hard to implement the controversial R1 trillion nuclear deal with Russia. Recently, it emerged that she appears to be helping friends claim hundreds of millions of rands, in connection with the computer system that stores DNA samples and other important evidence for the South African police service. The DA is calling for a debate of national importance in parliament, because the information system has been offline since June last year. Also among those fighting back against Joemat-Pettersson is Paul O’Sullivan, founder of Forensics for Justice. O’Sullivan spoke to the BizNews Power Hour about the fiasco and what the next steps are.
Paul O’Sullivan on Tina Joemat-Pettersson:
I’m not necessarily saying she’s corrupt. I’m saying she has a track history of abusing public funds. She was hauled over the coals by the public protector several times – not once, but twice. The purpose of that was simply because she had been treating public funds with contempt. If you look at what the public protector said of her in 2012, the public protector said Minister Joemat-Pettersson’s defence of ignorance of the costs involved – though accepted – is a cause for serious concern, as she displayed a blank check attitude towards public funds.
She found her in breach of the executive ethics code and she said, therefore, the conclusion that her conduct amounted to reckless use of public funds was improper and unethical, is accordingly justified. In 2014, she got hauled over the coals over the patrol boat issue with the Navy. Again, the public protector said the actions of the minister constitute improper conduct and maladministration.
Her recommendation – which hasn’t been taken into account by the way – said the president should consider taking disciplinary action against the minister for her reckless dealing with state money and services, resulting in fruitless and wasteful expenditure. A loss of confidence in the fisheries industry in South Africa, decimation of fisheries resources and delayed quota allocations due to lack of appropriate research. I can’t think of a higher level of incompetence. This is the same woman that wanted to have South Africa get itself in debt up to the eyeballs, to embark on a nuclear power programme – which was one of Zuma’s pet projects.
On his letter to Tina Joemat-Pettersson:
I said it’s clear to us that your reckless unlawfulness is being motivated by arrogance, incompetence or criminal conduct. Either way, it will stop and stop now. Every time we say we’re going to do something, we do it. We are not going to stand by and watch R540m of taxpayer funds being thrown at a bunch of criminals.
On the SAP 13 evidence store:
All evidence of a crime goes into what we call the SAP 13 register. Let’s say they find a gun at a crime scene. The gun will be sent away for ballistics and then it will be bagged in a bag with a barcode on it, which links it directly to the criminal case in question. Then, the prosecutor – well, the police at the moment – but eventually the prosecutor, when eventually we have what they call integrated justice system.
[This will allow] a prosecutor to look on his computer and see the criminal docket, which is what they have now in probably 70% or 75% of the countries in the world. I think it’ll be another few years and we will have an integrated justice system where a criminal docket is opened, you will give your statement. It will be scanned and the investigation diary will be electronic. The police officer/detective will list all the evidence that was found at the crime scene.
It will be tagged, scanned and then it’s put into the storeroom. When it’s put into the storeroom, it will be stored in a particular location at a smaller police station. At a larger police station, they have rows of racks and it will have a row number and a record number and a position number. That all goes on the computer. Then you don’t have this stupid situation that we’ve been having, where the trial is going on and suddenly nobody can find the smoking gun or the knife or whatever was bagged.
On corruption relating to Khomotso Phahlane:
This is all being relayed at the Zondo Commission into state capture. In 2015/2016, Forensics for Justice opened the criminal docket against Phahlane for corruption. We’re saying that his corruption wasn’t just about the kickbacks he got from certain forensic supply companies, to build a luxury mansion. But his corruption also involved a much broader scale. We did not carry out that investigation. It was carried out by IPID. But what we did do was we fed into IPID, the data, information and intelligence that we received.
We then assisted IPID – who led the investigation – and they came to the conclusion that Phahlane had been paid vast sums of money through a money laundering process. The money went out to Namibia and then it came back from Namibia and was then paid to car dealers. Cars were bought, sold and converted to cash – the whole process to conceal the flow of funds. The end result was that FDA were getting paid to supply – for example, you go out to the store and buy yourself a camera that has a little battery that goes in it.
They were supplying these cameras. Let’s say they supply the camera across the whole country. Forensics in the whole country; it might be 3,000 cameras. If you’ve got 3,000 cameras and they’re R5,000 each, that’s R15 million. Then, they sign a maintenance contract to replace batteries once a year for another R5,000. We call it evergreen contracts. No tender process and not a single competitive price was obtained. It ultimately led to them buying and importing goods from Australia, from a company which they owned.
They were buying the goods. Let’s say ‘item A’ was being purchased for R1,000 in Australia. It was then being sold to their company here, for R20,000 and then being sold to the police for R30,000. The police ended up paying 30 times more than the value of the goods that these people were selling. The whole thing was a total rip off. In order to get away with it – and not to have any competitive procurement processes – they paid bribes to Phahlane. He wasn’t the only one. His wife was given bribes as well.
On IPID (Independent Police Investigative Directorate):
IPID has a new leader. The leader was appointed by a Minister of Police who, we say, is not fit for purpose, is involved in criminal activity and has been involved in criminal activity for a very long time. He shouldn’t be the Minister of Police. He, unlawfully, got rid of Robert McBride. He unlawfully appointed a woman – who was not fit and proper – and she now is complying with his requests. She has effectively, or is in the process of, eviscerating the investigative capacity of IPID. It no longer has this high-powered investigation team that they once had. She’s broken it down, so IPID can just investigate what I consider to be not rocket science crimes.
On whether Tina Joemat-Pettersson has responded to O’Sullivan:
No. But, arrogant people don’t, do they? She’s had plenty of time to respond. She’ll see what happens – if she stands up in parliament next Wednesday and is able to get agreement by General Sithole that they are going to pay the R540 million to FDA – we shall launch an urgent application. No judge in his right mind is going to agree that the police – who’ve had hundreds of millions of rands stolen from them in the last 10 years – should give another half a billion rand of taxpayers money to the thieves that stole the money in the first place. It’s just not going to happen. We’re not going to allow it to happen.
Read also:
- ‘If I were in Jooste’s shoes, I’d fly to Germany’ – life in their prisons would be far easier than in SA, says O’Sullivan
- Hopeful SAs speak: We’re rooting for Paul O’Sullivan! Expose the lawyers!
- Will Jacob Zuma ever serve jail time for corruption? Here’s why it’s unlikely – Paul O’Sullivan
