Johannesburg - The Zondo commission has heard how Ipid was infiltrated by crime intelligence officers after former head Robert McBride was suspended in 2015.
McBride told the commission that upon his return to his post, following a 18-month suspension, he found various concerning changes to Ipid that had been enforced by former acting Ipid head Israel Kgamanyane.
He discovered that managers were being transferred from various positions to other position even outside of their home provinces.
He said these changes instilled feared and low staff morale. He said the strange and damaging changes happened over a period of nine months.
McBride said he also found that two individuals from the SAPS crime intelligence division had been permanently employed at Ipid.
The officers were Tlou Kgomo and Emily Motsugi. McBride said Kgomo had been appointed as the head of investigations after Matthews Sesoko was fired and criminally charged.
He said Kgomo and Motsugi quickly returned to crime intelligence when he returned to office after winning a Constitutional Court victory challenging his suspension.
McBride said Kgomo was also the individual that offered two Ipid investigators positions within crime intelligence for exchange of them making damning allegations against Ipid managers.
“My next encounter with Kgomo was in Parliament where he was part of Phahlane’s team to counter Ipid's investigations. Kgomo would later approach Ipid investigators, Mandla Mahlangu (“Mahlangu”) and Cedrick Nkabinde (“Nkabinde”), to offer them Brigadier positions to induce them to make false statements to implicate Ipid managers in wrongdoing,” said McBride.
The commission also heard a voice recording of the Kgomo making a job offer to Mahlangu.
“In a recording made by one of the investigators, Kgomo can be heard making such an offer to Mahlangu. He confirms to Mahlangu that he is working with the North West team led by Major General Jan Mabula (“Mabula”) investigating a concocted case that would bring me “down”, along with other Ipid investigators and torpedo the investigation against Phahlane (former acting national police commissioner),” said McBride.
Earlier, the commission heard how Kgamanyane had also lied to Parliament about Ipid’s performance.
McBride said Kgamanyane was given a bonus by Nhleko for his performance.
He said Kgamanyane manipulated cases and statistics to prove that performance had improved.
“There were allegations that certain cases that were being investigated by the Ipid had been prematurely closed without carrying out proper investigation processes as contained in the Standard Operating Procedures. This was done in certain instances to push the statistics and other acts that amounted to defeating the ends of justice. These cases were termed “special closures”. This was intended to manipulate statistics to give an impression that performance had been better under Kgamanyane,” said McBride.
McBride resumes with his testimony on Tuesday.