Mkhwanazi exposes Presidency's pressure on police deployment for Richards Bay Minerals

President Cyril Ramaphosa's office exerted pressure on National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola to deploy highly specialised units for the benefit of mining company Richards Bay Minerals (RBM).

This was revealed by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi on Friday, during the third day of giving explosive evidence at the judicial commission of inquiry into criminality, political interference, and corruption in the criminal justice system, chaired by retired Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga.

Mkhwanazi told the commission that he sent a team of five detectives to Richards Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal, where at least five RBM executives had been murdered.

He said that after a year, the detectives were recalled because they were not making sufficient progress on the murder cases but continued with their investigation cases from their normal base in Durban.

Mkhwanazi said the detectives did normal police work but could not make any breakthroughs on the RBM murder cases.

According to Mkhwanazi, it appears that RBM has contacts in higher places, as he was called by Masemola, who informed him that he had received a complaint from the Presidency.

Mkhwanazi said Masemola told him that a plan must be drafted and sent to him, and he would make money available for the team.

Masemola's intervention saw the police's task force and national intervention unit (NIU) being deployed to Richards Bay.

Mkhwanazi testified that the task force and the NIU were the fighting arms of the police and not investigators.

He said the instruction given to the team was to work at RBM and nowhere else and they were there for the whole financial year.

“RBM had the privilege of getting a SAPS deployment only for them, which was funded from the national office,” Mkhwanazi said.

He added that they were there for RBM and nobody else, and they were not talking to anyone, including him or the district commissioner.

Mkhwanazi described the situation as a case of the Presidency having complained and the national commissioner deploying.

He said businesspeople in that area complained about the deployment of the police's RBM-specific team but he told them to speak to then police minister Bheki Cele.

Mkhwanazi insisted that he did not know about the police deployment at RBM.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za