Jan Gerber
Suspended police Crime Intelligence Chief, Lieutenant-General Peter Jacobs, has lost a court bid to return to work.
Jacobs, and five officers under his command, face misconduct charges which centre on the use of a secret police slush fund to buy Covid-19 PPE.
The veteran cop claims he is being pushed out for exposing graft in the uppermost echelons of the police.
An urgent court bid by police Crime Intelligence head Peter Jacobs, in which he and five of his subordinates challenged their suspensions over a R1.5 million Covid-19 personal protection equipment (PPE) procurement scandal, was dismissed by the Pretoria High court on Friday.
Thus the application by Jacobs, argued Sitole, was not urgent “and any urgency is self-created”.
Sitole said that “proper safeguards are in place in the interim and the day-to-day functioning of the Crime Intelligence Division has not been compromised in any way”.
Jacobs and his fellow officers were on a “precautionary” and not “punitive” suspension, said Sitole, pending the finalisation of an investigation into alleged illegal Covid-19 PPE purchases by the division, using the Secret Service Account.
They also had other remedies at their disposal apart from approaching the high court, added Sitole.
They could turn to the Labour Court, he said, or “assist in the investigation by cooperating with Lieutenant-General [Francinah] Vuma so as to clear their names and assist in the efforts to root out corruption within the SAPS”.
First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
2020 has been a tumultuous year for the SAPS. At least 20 rotten cops, many at the apex of the service, have been arrested, charged and dismissed for fraud and corruption amounting to hundreds of millions of rand.
Five years ago this colonic irrigation of senior ranks in law enforcement would have been unlikely if not unthinkable unless forced by an order of the court.
The arrests come after years of dogged investigation, often under life-threatening and career-limiting conditions by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) and propelled by a renewed vigour within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).