The public protector has raised red flags over the conduct of the SA Police Services (SAPS) and its Presidential Protection Unit while clearing President Cyril Ramaphosa of misconduct in its investigation into a 2020 robbery at one of the president’s farms.
In a report circulated to affected parties on Friday for comment acting public protector Kholeka Gcaleka found that former head of the presidential protection unit, Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode, failed to inform his commanding officer of this crime after it was reported to him by Ramaphosa. The report also accuses the SAPS of maladministration and improper conduct in relation to its handling of the theft of foreign currency at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm in Limpopo.
Gcaleka found that Ramaphosa did report the crime and that he did not use any state resources to try to recoup the lost cash.
However, the 191-page provisional report fingers high-ranking police generals and officers for “not opening a docket” and allegedly running an “unofficial criminal investigation” into the theft.
Allegations in the report against police wrongdoing include failure to open a case docket to enable an official investigation by the relevant crime detection service.
The report states: “Further evidence before the public protector reveals that Gen Rhoode assembled his own investigation team and subsequently engaged in an unofficial criminal investigation.... Although Gen Rhoode contends that he was only conducting a preliminary investigation on the security breach to establish a threat on the president’s safety on the instruction [of a superior] his contention is not supported by the evidence at hand.”
The finding of the provisional report, to which parties were given 10 days to make submissions on before a final version is released to the public, were widely reported over the weekend. The office of the public protector warned however that the document was not for “public consumption”.
“The notice remains prohibited for public consumption under section 7(2) of the Public Protector Act which prohibits the disclosure, by any person, of the contents of any document or record of any evidence given before the public protector or deputy public protector during an investigation,” the public protector’s acting spokesperson Ndili Msoki said in a statement.
According to Msoki, once the affected and implicated people have submitted representations to the public protector, such representations will be considered and a final report will be produced and published.
The DA, one of the concerned parties that requested an investigation by the public protector into allegations of a potential violation of the executive ethics code by Ramaphosa related to the theft at Phala Phala, said it was “unfortunate” that the preliminary report had been leaked and that its contents was “now being reported as truth”.
“Our initial analysis of the preliminary report is concerning. The report contains a number of inherent contradictions, and the public protector has outsourced much of the investigatory work to the SA Revenue Service and the SA Reserve Bank where it will be cloaked in secrecy. None of this provides the necessary transparency and accountability to the Republic to conduct oversight over its president,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen in a statement.
Steenhuisen said they believed that the public protector misunderstood the nature of the conflict of interest raised by the DA and thus the preliminary report failed to address the complaint which was lodged.
“The DA will be studying the preliminary findings of the report to compile and submit our representations to the public protector, and will communicate on these submissions in due course,” he said.
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