It has been a bad week for policing in SA, with claims and counterclaims of corruption at the very highest level. This comes hot on the heels of the recent arrest of the head of police crime intelligence on corruption-related charges.
It seems clear that organised crime has infiltrated the SA Police Service (SAPS) in one way or another. Meanwhile, at the coalface, a competent and honest police force is desperately needed to investigate a terrible crime — the murder of forensic auditor Mpho Mafole.
Mafole’s murder appears to be linked to a novel form of corruption in municipalities, known as “diversion of revenue”. This involves officials who ensure that electricity and water can be consumed without ever being reflected on the consumer’s bill. Revenue is in effect diverted to the corrupt officials.
On June 30 Mafole, the head of forensic investigations at Ekurhuleni, was gunned down. According to a report on IOL, he was murdered because he had identified just such a scheme:
“According to a senior member of the municipality, Mafole and his team were probing a huge electricity billing scandal that cost Ekurhuleni taxpayers over R2bn. The scandal involved tampered electricity accounts, with some accounts paying drastically reduced rates for electricity, while others were absent from the system, evidently showing that the municipality was being short-changed.”
An EWN report quoted Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza as saying: “It’s one thing to prepare a charge sheet for suspended officials and once you submit it, something happens. We don’t want to draw up linkages, but if you are involved in this type of work and you get shot, it can’t be a random thing.”
Mafole had only recently been appointed at the city after working for many years in the office of the SA auditor-general. He grew up in Thembisa, excelled at school, completed his articles at Ernst & Young and went on to become a skilled and hardworking public servant. He died in a hail of bullets in his early 40s, leaving behind his devastated parents, wife and children. We can only imagine their agony.
This assassination recalls the murder of Babita Deokaran, the whistle-blower who was murdered in a similar fashion following her role in uncovering large-scale corruption at Tembisa Hospital. Her killers were brought to book following a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation, but those who ordered her murder are still on the loose.
Mafole’s murder should be treated as a national emergency. It should be carried as front page news. It should elicit the highest and most urgent response from the cabinet of our country. The DA has called for the SIU to be appointed to investigate Mafole’s murder. This should be done without delay, and we should hope that the current crisis in the senior ranks of the SAPS will not distract them from finding the killers and those behind them. In fact, we should establish a routine practice in SA that if whistle-blowers and investigators are murdered, the matter will automatically be referred to the highest and best resourced investigation authority.
This murder is one more indication of the terrible crisis of local government in SA. It has become a locus of organised crime, a playground for corrupt syndicates, which often include the political and administrative leaders of local governments. Until political parties are willing to root out organised criminals in their own ranks, they will continue to destroy our cities. Finding Mafole’s killers — and addressing the wider scourge of “diversion of revenue” — should be at the top of our national agenda.
• Bethlehem is an economic development specialist and partner at Genesis Analytics. She has worked in the forestry, renewable energy, housing and property sectors as well as in local and national government. She writes in her personal capacity.
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