‘Cele did it’

Suspended police commissioner Bheki Cele not only identified two buildings for contentious lease contracts, he also instructed a senior procurement official to lease the buildings in Pretoria and Durban to be used as the police’s new headquarters, an inquiry into his conduct heard yesterday. The police’s former procurement head, Lieutenant-General Hamilton Hlela, said he had found it strange that Cele suddenly told him about the Middestad Sanlam building in Schoeman Street – a lease for which Cele later signed. Cele allegedly gave the instruction after Hlela took him to visit a site in Pretoria where the police’s headquarters were supposed to be built. “He informed me of one building in the city where two floors where readily available for leasing,” said Hlela, who was also deputy national police commissioner at the time.

“I asked him to give me the number of the contact person, but he said the person would contact me or would come visit me. I did not know who that person was.” Hlela said that in May 2010, he was instructed by Cele to arrange meetings with Public Works officials to secure the building. He acknowledged that Cele did not tell him what to say in those meetings. However, Cele’s defence came out guns blazing and tried to show that Hlela, and not Cele, had been responsible for all procurement decisions made, saying he had made important decisions without consulting the commissioner. Cele’s defence counsel, Vincent Maleka SC, and asked Hlela about the processes that led to the procurement of the Middestad Sanlam building in Pretoria.

They also questioned him about his meeting property mogul Roux Shabangu, as well as his efforts to fast-track the tender process without the knowledge and go-ahead of Cele. “You did not pass information on communication between you and Shabangu around the building to Cele,” he asked. Hlela acknowledged he had not. “The instructions, to urgently procure the renovations, were from Cele to me, and no, I did not question why, because he had said he wanted them. I knew he wanted that urgently,” Hlela said. Earlier, the chairman of the board of inquiry, Judge Jake Moloi, started the proceedings by explaining that the board would not re-investigate the findings of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report, but would rather seek to establish whether Cele had acted corruptly or dishonestly or with an undeclared conflict of interest in relation to the two police leases.

His fitness to hold office and capacity to execute his duties efficiently would also be examined, the judge said. Cele was suspended in October on the recommendation of the public protector. Madonsela’s investigation found that Cele might have had a hand in the unlawful leases – for a combined R1.7 billion – for police headquarters in Pretoria and Durban. The inquiry’s hearings are public, and the prosecuting team has 10 witnesses and documents to be brought under scrutiny. Cele is expected to take the stand for cross-examination and to answer the charges against him. During his testimony, Hlela said he did not think Cele was corrupt and he had not stated this in his affidavit.

“I would have laid a corruption charge if I felt he was guilty,” he said. Evidence leader Viwe Notshe SC was warned by Maleka against a “general tendency” of promising evidence that failed to prove anything, particularly in relation to Cele’s alleged contravention of the Public Finance Management Act. However, Notshe said he and the other leaders of evidence would prove that while at the helm of the police service, Cele contravened, among others, provisions of this act as well as the Government Immovable Assets Management Act and Treasury regulations. Notshe said Cele had attempted to distance himself from the identification of the two properties during Madonsela’s investigations.

“He attempted at all costs to distance himself… The national commissioner sought to shift all the blame to Hlela,” said Notshe. Asked by Maleka whether Cele’s instruction about leasing a particular building was improper, Hlela said the market had to be tested, and that one could not just point a finger at a building. Asked why he had not raised that fact with Cele, Hlela said: “I did not because he wanted the building.”