Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
Discrepancies emerged on Thursday in the testimony of Cedric Nkabinde, suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu’s chief of staff before parliament’s police ad hoc committee around whether he knew his boss’s alleged middleman Brown Mogotsi who facilitated meetings with criminal syndicates.
After a lengthy discussion on when Nkabinde knew about Mogotsi and what dates he met him, the committee’s chairperson Soviet Lekganyane said Nkabinde would have to go away and prepare properly.
“The committee has unfortunately made a reflection on the evidence that you presented here and is worried about the quality of statements you had made before it,” Lekganyane said, noting how Nkabinde testimony differed from his affidavit particularly with regard to dates for meetings between Mchunu, Mogotsi and KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
“We want you to go back and make an honest reflection about the information you think we deserve to get from you.”
Nkabinde told the committee he had known who Mogotsi was before Mkhwanazi sent him his number. But in his affidavit he said it was Mchunu who sent him Mogotsi’s phone number to organise a meeting.
“The confusion is caused by me not having my gadgets,” Nkabinde told the ad hoc committee.
Nkabinde and Mchunu handed over their gadgets to the South African Police Service (SAPS) as part of the investigation into Mkhwanazi’s allegations — first made in a July media briefing — accusing the police minister of political interference and collusion with syndicates.
“With regards to date discrepancies I did not do proper research due to the time constraints,” Nkabinde said on Thursday.
UMkhonto weSizwe MP Sibonelo Nomvalo said the Ad hoc committee’s senior counsel William Arendse should have better prepared the witness in drafting his affidavit.
“The senior counsel was supposed, during consultation, to guide the witness and say to him these are issues that you are expected to respond to during the interview in an ad hoc committee,” Nomvalo said.
Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema asked Nkabinde how he had written the affidavit presented to the committee without drawing on his gadgets for the information.
“[For the] dates I was thumb-sucking,” Nkabinde confessed.
“So we are being given thumb-sucked information here in front of the nation and we must accept that. The simple thing should have been [to state] to the evidence leader, ‘I don’t have my gadgets and as a result I’m unable to give accurate information,” Malema retorted, adding that Nkabinde’s testimony should not proceed as he was presenting inaccurate information.
ActionSA MP Dereen James slammed Nkabinde for wasting the committee’s time.
“Are we meant to sit here today and even probe you as to when things happened when you’ve given us a written statement. I don’t think we should continue with you today,” she said.
ANC MP Khuselo Sangoni defended Nkabinde, noting that throughout his testimony as well as his submission “he kept referring to the fact that he does not have his devices, which means that he feels disadvantaged in participating in this process”.
Democratic Alliance MP Ian Cameron said Nkabinde should have written to the police ministry for diary entries relating to Mchunu’s schedule.
“What bothers me is there is no indication he went above and beyond to get the relevant information,” said Cameron.