Central SA
Police commissioner concerned about recent accusations from dismissed employees─── LUCKY NKUYANE 11:30 Sat, 19 Nov 2022
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has been caught up in a controversy involving one of its officials from Welkom in the Free State.
Former SAPS employee, Patricia Mashale, had alleged that a member of the Human Resource Management (HRM) division held no South African documents and had fake qualifications.
However, the national police commissioner, Fannie Masemola, has since issued a stern warning against such claims. He says he has noted with concern recent social media posts that seek to vilify members of the SAPS HRM division.
Masemola says the SAPS once again places on record that an internal departmental investigation, sanctioned by the national commissioner and an independent investigation conducted by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), found no adverse findings against Lineo Ntshiea.
Ntsiea was accused of being a Lesotho citizen who stole the identity document of her relative, and that she was never vetted by SAPS upon her appointment.
Some of the allegations were raised during IPID's imbizo in Bloemfontein on 25 April 2022.
“Amongst other findings, the investigation found that the senior officer who is in possession of a top-secret security clearance is a South African citizen born in Welkom, a matter which was confirmed by the Department of Home Affairs. Lt Gen Ntshiea is also in possession of qualifications which were verified and confirmed as authentic by the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA).
“It is worth noting that the peddling of such information is being perpetuated by those who were dismissed from the service for various misconduct,” Masemola add.
In June this year, Mashale threatened to open a case against the national commissioner and Minister Bheki Cele.
“I’ll also implicate IPID who handed our dockets back to SAPS for investigation because it's their mandate to investigate all SAPS cases where members are implicated in wrongdoing. Why is this one different from where top management is implicated?
"Junior police officials have been charged and arrested by the same IPID, but they are not acting against top management while they have all the evidence in their hands.
"I want to know who mandated IPID to hand the dockets back to SAPS for investigation, even before they gave me feedback. Who is trying to make sure that these corrupt [officials] are not exposed at all costs?" Mashale said.
