Dear Editor
I am issuing this statement to categorically and in the strongest possible terms refute the outrageous, defamatory, and entirely baseless allegations made against me by the Provincial Police Commissioner of KZN, suggesting my involvement in a criminal syndicate and the leaking of sensitive information.
On 17 February of this year, following extensive reporting and photographs in national newspapers, I wrote to the Inspector General of Intelligence (IGI) formally requesting an investigation into the dubious purchases of two properties by Crime Intelligence. This request was a direct response to serious concerns already in the public domain.
My enquiries confirmed that no proper approach had been made to the Minister of Public Works for these properties, a fundamental legal requirement for such acquisitions. The public reports suggested the purchases were approved internally by high-ranking SAPS Crime Intelligence members, bypassing proper procedure and raising significant red flags.
The Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) took a full year from the time of the national election to operationalise, hence, it was months before that the committee was formally constituted that I wrote to the Inspector General. The claims were that the purchases were all approved by high-ranking members of the SAPS CI,
I served as a member of the JSCI during the last Parliamentary term, and once one is sworn into the committee, no member may share anything spoken of within that committee. As such I may not speak of the outcome of that investigation which I asked the Inspector General to do, given that the report was presented to the committee.
For it to be suggested by General Mkhwanazi that I was somehow part of a criminal syndicate, is absurd.
The General Mkhwanazi told the Judicial Commissioners that they could Google my statement, but in the same light a few minutes of research on Google would have shown that the initial reports of the two properties appeared in the media, that I reacted to those reports and that the JSCI was only sworn in over two months later.
Regards
Dianne Kohler Barnard MP
DA Spokesperson on State Security