Tangeni Amupadhi
BRIAN MORROW, the former police officer who blew the whistle on the “Inkathagate” scandal, is a disappointed man.
From his home in England he asked the minister of safety and security if he could rejoin the police force because he now feels it is safe to return to South Africa. But he was told: “I regret …”
In January he received a letter from the ministry saying his case was being looked at. A second letter informed him of the moratorium on recruitment into the South African Police Service (SAPS) which “includes enlistment”.
According to Morrow he was sent a standard letter.
“Perhaps I was naive to think that they would look into my case because the circumstances in which I left were different,” he said.
Now 34, he resigned from the police and went to England in 1991, taking with him documents from top-secret police files over a period of two years. One of those documents showed how the National Party government funded the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
Morrow said he never did this for personal glory. He took the documents to expose what he believed were wrongdoings by the police. He released the documents in London to the then Weekly Mail.
From the time the report was published until two years ago, Morrow said he and his family received a string of death threats, by letter and in anonymous telephone calls.
“I was under the somewhat misguided impression, it seems, that my actions would be recognised as honourable and I would be considered worthy of reinstatement in the SAPS,” he said.
Maxwell Mulaudzi, representative for the minister of safety and security, said the moratorium was a question of government policy.
“Should he get preferential treatment because he leaked documents to the Weekly Mail?” Mulaudzi said.
Morrow said he was not asking for special treatment, but just wanted his old job back, with the warrant officer rank he held at the time.
“If I had not taken such risks and had turned a blind eye as most did, I would still be in the SAPS with a high-ranking position.”
The documents he removed from police files showed the IFP had been secretly funded by the police. The revelation undermined the IFP’s political standing, both domestically and internationally.
The “Inkathagate” exposure also led to the exposure of a number of covert operations aimed at discrediting the African National Congress. The scandal brought the careers of two security ministers, Adriaan Vlok and Magnus Malan, to an end.
It weakened the National Party’s credibility and led to an inquiry into the funding of many secret projects.
Morrow took documents from the filing department at CR Swart Square, the police headquarters in Durban. The most secret documents were contained in Stratcom (strategic communications) files in a heavily protected room.
Although Morrow insists that he did the right thing by exposing police funding of the IFP and feels he deserves a better explanation for being turned down for employment in the SAPS.
“I just want them to explain why people like Dirk Coetzee, people who’ve admitted to murder, are still in the employ of the government.”
Morrow, who was born in South Africa and is now a teacher in England, says he will return home in spite of the refusal to employ him in the SAPS.
His wife gave birth to their second child, a boy, on Wednesday. They also have a three-year-old girl.