CAPE TOWN - Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) director of investigations Thuso Keefelakae says President Cyril Ramaphosa’s head of security, Major General Wally Rhoode, failed to register a case docket following the theft at the president’s Phala Phala farm.
On Wednesday, Members of Parliament on the Police Portfolio Committee grilled SAPS over an internal probe that cleared two police officers linked to the controversial Phala Phala foreign currency theft saga.
IPID found that the officers failed to register the theft case at a police station. The watchdog also raised concerns over the use of members of the Presidential Protection Unit to investigate Ramaphosa’s private business affairs.
Keefelakae told MPs that Rhoode acted in what IPID considers an improper and disgraceful manner in handling the matter.
He further clarified that it was not part of IPID’s mandate to determine whether Ramaphosa himself should have opened a criminal case.
uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party MP Wesley Douglas said there was a clear cover-up in the theft saga.
"There is a cover-up, people at senior levels are involved, and we need to determine how to stop that from happening now and also in the future. Does SAPS acknowledge that public trust has been damaged by the perception of its matter? It was treated differently because it involved the president."
ATM leader Vuyolwethu Zungula questioned why Rhoode had not been criminally charged.
"On your inference that the president was not aware of any investigation done by Rhoode, did you get any statement from the president to confirm that? Why have you not instituted criminal charges against Rhoode? Why is SAPS only wanting to deal with this issue from an HR point of view?"
IPID said it found evidence that members of the police and the Presidential Protection Unit engaged in an unauthorised investigation involving the unlawful apprehension of suspects, bribery and torture.
MPs also questioned the whereabouts of the couch where the missing dollars were allegedly stashed.
"It is part of primary and key evidence. This entire matter reeks of a cover-up; we are just waiting for our time," said ActionSA's Dereleen James.