A high ranking police official, a recently retired policeman and a pensioner are three of 15 accused who were granted bail in a police procurement corruption case in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court.
Salamina Khoza, 67, one of the three granted bail on Tuesday, had pleaded poverty and said she could not afford the R20,000 bail proposed by the state as she survived on an old age grant.
However, prosecutor Tilas Chabalala said Khoza was listed as a director of three companies which collectively received payments of close to R3m from police tenders.
The 15 were arrested on Monday in Gauteng, Limpopo and North West and face charges of corruption, theft, fraud and forgery.
The charges relate to the acquisition by the police service of protective personal equipment (PPE) materials valued at R1.9m.
They were arrested for allegations of having caused a supplier to unduly benefit from the procurement of latex gloves in April 2020 for the police service nationally.
The state did not oppose the bail application for Khoza, retired policeman Isaac Majaji Ngobeni, 61, and Stephinah Mokgohle Mahlangu, 52, who is a brigadier in the police service.
Though Khoza and Ngobeni had asked for their bail to be set at R500, and Mahlangu indicated she might be able to pay R5,000 for her release on bail, magistrate Phillip Venter set their bail at R5,000 each.
Khoza had told the court she received the old age pension of R1,900 from the SA Social Security Agency and lived in a house belonging to her daughter in Soshanguve.
The state indicated it will oppose bail for the rest of the accused.
Among the accused in the case are former police officers Ramahlapi Mokwena, who was divisional commissioner for supply chain management at the Pretoria head office, and James Ramanjalum.
The two are also the accused in the police “blue lights” tender case in the same court. That case, instituted in 2018, has yet to reach the pleading stage.
Other accused include former police officials Lesetja David Mogotlane, Veeran Naipal, Alpheus Nkosibakhe Makhetha and Marcell Duan Marley, who the police service dismissed in 2020.
The police dismissed the four after their arrest in 2020 in a separate case on charges which include fraud, corruption, theft and money laundering.
The rest of the accused are businessman Kishene Chetty, 39, Lorette Joubert, 44, Kumarasen Prithiviraj, 48, Volan Prithiviraj, 24, Maricha Joubert, 25, and Kysamula Morris Mabasa, 61.
Among the reasons Chabalala said the state would oppose bail was that these accused have pending cases against them.
“When the offences were committed, the 12 accused were all out on bail on other matters, which are schedule 5 offences. The state is opposing their bail.”
Chabalala said there was a likelihood that should they be granted bail, the 12 might commit other offences.
The bail application for the 12 is expected to start on Wednesday.
According to the charge sheet, Chetty and Khoza face charges of forgery, uttering, fraud and theft. The charge sheet states Chetty was the owner of companies including Siyangoba.
The central supplier database reflected Siyangoba was registered as a supplier of “specialised construction activities, wholesale, repair of motor vehicles and motor cycles” in the central supplier database (CSD).
The CSD maintains a database of organisations, institutions and individuals who can provide goods and services to government.
The charge sheet states Ngobeni and Mahlangu were aware of the fact they could procure PPE by way of inviting written price quotations from suppliers who were registered on the CSD as suppliers of PPE.
The charge sheet states on April 20 2020, Ngobeni sent a request for a written quotation to Siyangoba and Khoza to submit a written price quotation to supply 1-million latex gloves to the police.
“The written price quotation from Siyangoba misrepresented that the principal business of Siyangoba was ‘medical Equipment and supplies’,” the charge sheet reads.
The state alleges during May and June 2020, Chetty, and/or Khoza and Siyangoba paid three amounts totalling R270,000 to a firm of attorneys for legal fees incurred by some of the accused in separate cases.
These included a R50,000 payment for fees for Mokwena and Ramanjalum in the blue lights case.
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