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Former acting crime intelligence head Chris Ngcobo – who was found guilty in a police disciplinary hearing of “consistently lying” about having a matric certificate – is South Africa’s new ambassador designate to Mali.
Ngcobo joins a list of controversial ambassadorial appointments of diplomats who were given postings after controversies at home.
City Press this week visited the department of international relations and cooperation headquarters in Pretoria after two senior police officers and one senior official close to the police informed City Press that Ngcobo was set to become an ambassador.
On Wednesday, City Press found Ngcobo’s name and phone extension number on their internal telephone system. Two workers at the building told City Press that Ngcobo had been undergoing training at the department for the past three months.
A senior department official told City Press that Ngcobo, a former Umkhonto weSizwe combatant, has been undergoing a diplomatic course and has now completed his training. His credentials have been sent to the Malian government and he is set to take up the post next year.
“Ngcobo is due to start in January – when [current ambassador] Oupa Mokou’s term of office ends. For now, he is just waiting for the vetting processes of the Mali government to be completed,” said the senior official.
Ngcobo did not respond to repeated requests for comment made over three weeks.
Department spokesperson Clayson Monyela said they do not comment on nominated candidates prior to their deployment on various missions.
The diplomatic training supplies ambassador designates with the skills required to run a mission. Diplomatic protocol requires that they receive official confirmation of their acceptance by the receiving state before they are deployed there.
The news of Ngcobo’s deployment to Mali has been kept under wraps within the intelligence community.
“The issue of him lying about having a matric has been the burning issue with officials told not to disclose the nomination prior to his departure,” said a senior police officer close to Ngcobo’s disciplinary process.
Ngcobo was suspended in October 2013 by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega after it was found that he “consistently lied” about having a matric certificate, according to documents submitted in the Johannesburg Labour Court. His claims were found to have been false during a vetting process undertaken when Ncgobo applied for a promotion.
However, those close to Ngcobo have accused Phiyega of being determined to persecute the former acting crime intelligence head after his unit caught her tipping off now-suspended Western Cape police commissioner Arno Lamoer and telling him that he was being investigated for his alleged links to suspected Western Cape drug lords.
Ngcobo filed an urgent application in the Johannesburg Labour Court in December after his salary was stopped. But in opposing papers from the SA Police Service, Major General Jacob Tsumane – who was a witness at Ngcobo’s disciplinary hearing – said that “[Ngcobo] misled the employer regarding his qualifications and claimed to have a Standard 10/Grade 12 qualification, which he does not have”.
Tsumane said Ngcobo was warned to appear before a disciplinary panel the previous month, but failed to do so.
Ngcobo resigned from the police service in August this year and was to face a criminal investigation for fraud. At the time, police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said that although the disciplinary process was no longer being pursued, “the criminal investigation will continue”. However, Naidoo said yesterday that Ngcobo had left the SA Police Service and that it would not comment further on the criminal investigation.
A senior police officer close to Phiyega said that at the time Ngcobo claimed to have obtained his matric certificate, he was out of the country. “Another discrepancy was that at the time he claimed to have matric, he was only 14 years old, which is highly unlikely,” he said.
However, Ngcobo was supported at his disciplinary hearing by former national police commissioner Bheki Cele, his predecessor Tim Williams and Lieutenant General Gary Kruser, former head of police procurement.
The three made submissions at the hearing, saying that Ngcobo, as a former Umkhonto weSizwe combatant commissioned into the police in 1994, was not required to possess or produce a matric certificate, or any qualifications, to qualify for the job when the integrated police force was established.
“I was fully aware Major General Ngcobo did not possess a matric qualification when I promoted him in 2010,” said Cele in his affidavit.
Other controversial ambassadors
Bruce Koloane landed a diplomatic posting in the Netherlands after being implicated in the Guptagate scandal. Koloane took the blame for the unlawful landing of a private chartered jet at Air Force Base Waterkloof in Pretoria in 2013, which was ferrying guests to the wedding of a Gupta family member.
Before his deployment to Washington, DC, former ANC Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool was implicated in a scandal involving paying journalists to write positive articles. A journalist implicated in a cash-for-stories “brown envelope” scandal claimed he was Rasool’s embedded spin doctor. The money was allegedly paid through a public relations company awarded contracts by the provincial government. Rasool has denied the allegations.
Former eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba was sent to the UK, despite being implicated by investigators in fraud and corruption related to his suspected involvement in a tender scandal. Mlaba emerged unscathed after a senior advocate advised the city that no action could be taken against him.
Former correctional services minister Ngconde Balfour was appointed as ambassador to Botswana despite serious findings by the Special Investigating Unit of corrupt dealings in correctional services that took place under his watch.
