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Pretoria - No cellphones or laptops in meetings. That’s the order from the new Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) boss in a bid to prevent media leaks.
Ipid acting head Israel Kgamanyane has issued a directive that no staff member is allowed to bring their cellphone, or any other recording device, into any meetings.
In a memorandum issued last week, Kgamanyane warned staff that bringing any device with recording capabilities into a meeting may constitute a disciplinary offence.
“It is mandatory that all Ipid employees, when attending all official meetings, must not carry or use any recording devices not limited to, for example, mobile phones, recording machines, laptops or any other device capable of recording proceedings during a meeting,” read the memorandum.
Kgamanyane’s orders come after leaked recordings of a senior Ipid management meeting revealed that Police Minister Nathi Nhleko had criticised the country’s judges, questioning their independence and alleging that they colluded with people to produce “certain judgments”.
Three Ipid employees, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, said that in a meeting at Ipid’s Pretoria headquarters last Tuesday, Kgamanyane told staff he had the support of Nhleko, Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu and the chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on police, Francois Beukman.
The three sources who attended the meeting said Kgamanyane also threatened to suspend any official who was disloyal to him, leaked information to the media, or acted in support of suspended Ipid head Robert McBride.
When City Press called Kgamanyane for comment on this allegation, he cut the call.
But Ipid spokesperson Grace Langa said in an email that “the Minimum Information Security Standard gives the executive director the powers and privileges to instruct officials not to bring their phones into the meeting or to turn their phones off, especially when he knows there will be sensitive information to be discussed during the meeting”.
“It is true, political principals [Nhleko, Sotyu and Beukman] support the acting executive director.”
On Tuesday, the Johannesburg Labour Court will hear an application by three officials seeking to interdict the Ipid boss from transferring or suspending them.
The three – former spokesperson Moses Dlamini, corporate services head Antoinette Mphago and legal services head Pule Maoka – received letters last week informing them that they would either be suspended or transferred.
The three, who were barred from entering Ipid’s Pretoria headquarters, were told that if they refused the transfers, they would be suspended.
In court papers, the three say they are not qualified to do the jobs they have been told to do and have also launched a complaint at the bargaining council.
The three wrote to Beukman last week, saying that Ipid was “paralysed by a pervading climate of fear and paranoia”, and that Kgamanyane has “threatened to suspend all senior managers because we do not support him”. The threats, they wrote, were “uttered in staff and management meetings”.
“We request the portfolio committee on police’s intervention because if Ipid continues on this trajectory, it will implode and it will be very difficult to recover. This is a cry for help,” they wrote.
Dlamini, Mphago and Maoka are being investigated in connection with leaking information to City Press about the appointment of Sotyu’s daughter, Boniwe, to the position of deputy investigations director in the Free State office.
She bagged the job ahead of 90 other candidates, one of whom was an experienced investigator who had received six awards for his work. Boniwe Sotyu had never conducted investigations before, and had neither the required qualifications nor the requisite experience for the position.
Ipid’s chief director of corporate services, Nomkhosi Netsianda, was suspended last month for querying Boniwe Sotyu’s appointment.
Memorandums seen by City Press show that Kgamanyane has launched a high-level investigation conducted by the State Security Agency to establish the identities of the people who had leaked the information about Boniwe Sotyu’s appointment.
Kgamanyane and Langa have said that the appointment was above board.
On Thursday, The Times reported Kgamanyane as saying that there was a plot to destabilise Ipid and cast doubt on his integrity.
“Boniwe Sotyu is qualified and has the necessary experience for the post.
“She was recommended by a panel chaired by highly qualified [Ipid investigator] Innocent Khuba, which included an investigator from the Public Protector’s office,” he was reported as saying
