Zuma's VIP protector gets top foreign post

22 November 2015 - 02:03 By THANDUXOLO JIKA with additional reporting by Gareth van Onselen
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ON LEAVE: Chris Ngcobo was questioned about his qualifications.
ON LEAVE: Chris Ngcobo was questioned about his qualifications.
Image: The Times

Disgraced former crime intelligence boss major-general Chris Ngcobo - who was caught lying about having a matric certificate - has been rewarded with an ambassador's post.

Ngcobo has been attending classes at the Department of International Relations' diplomatic academy in Pretoria since July this year. His likely assignment is Mali.

Ngcobo appears to have a close relationship with President Jacob Zuma. He previously headed the VIP protection service and was responsible for Zuma's security. He also had a close relationship with Zuma's bodyguards.

He was part of the group in the VIP service that successfully campaigned against a move to reduce Zuma's security contingent after he was fired as deputy president in 2005.

The ambassadorship comes after Ngcobo left the South African Police Service amid controversy for saying he had a matric certificate while only holding a Grade 10 qualification.

Ngcobo confirmed this week that he had been training as a diplomat, but could not say where he would be deployed.

"I don't know what the arrangement is and the processes, but I am just attending [training sessions]. I just hear from people that it is Mali and other places, but I don't know.

"Look, on that deployment, I don't have a challenge or a problem with it," said Ngcobo.

It is believed that his appointment will be announced next year.

Ngcobo resigned from the police in July this year while a disciplinary hearing was under way over his apparent misrepresentation of his qualifications. He had been placed on special leave in October 2013 by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega - herself since suspended - after the State Security Agency discovered discrepancies in his qualifications during a vetting process. He had been crime intelligence boss for a year after his predecessor Richard Mdluli had been suspended in 2012.

He maintains he made a mistake.

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"The mistake on my side was to confuse Grade 10 and Standard 10. That is where the problem was ... I was just asked to produce my certificates and qualifications ... they said I have written it down so I must go and get the certificate.

"But I said it's not there and I don't have it [matric certificate]. So I went to my CV - that's when I saw what they were referring to. Then I wrote to NatCom [the national commissioner] to say that there was a misunderstanding of Grade 10 and Standard 10. If I had produced any document it would have been something."

But Phiyega, in an interview with the Sunday Times last week, said Ngcobo only came clean about his qualifications after she had summoned him to her office.

Phiyega said a vetting process by the State Security Agency had found that Ngcobo had lied about his qualifications.

At first he told them that he could not find his certificate, but the Department of Basic Education had no record of it.

Vetting officials visited his school and the surrounding community, none of whom had any knowledge of him completing matric.

"When he told me that he confused Grade 10 with Standard 10, I told him back in his days there were no grades but only standards," Phiyega said.

Ngcobo, a former Umkhonto weSizwe operative who went into exile in 1984, claimed he was being persecuted by Phiyega because he had been investigating her for defeating the ends of justice after she tipped off Western Cape police commissioner Arno Lamoer that he was being probed by crime intelligence.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate cleared Phiyega.

Ngcobo said: "When they initiated that disciplinary hearing, it was flawed because the same complainant was the same person that investigated the matter, there was no investigating officer. I didn't leave out of my own will. General Phiyega didn't want to see anything else but to see me outside of SAPS."

During his disciplinary hearing Ngcobo called former police commissioner Bheki Cele as a witness to back up his claim that the police knew that he had no matric.

But yesterday Phiyega hit back at Ngcobo. She said: "He must tell the truth as to how the whole thing about the so-called misunderstanding with Grade 10 and Standard 10 came about. He is the one who was being vetted and told the state that he has a matric certificate. We only acted on information that was given to us after vetting processes. I never targeted him and this Lamoer thing is his own creation with no basis."

jikat@sundaytimes.co.za

sub_head_start Ten compromised South African diplomats sub_head_end

• 1996: Carl Niehaus appointed ambassador to The Netherlands. He would later claim he obtained a doctorate in theology at the University of Utrecht in 1999, while ambassador. However, it was revealed in the press that he did not get the doctorate. He was forced to resign as ANC spokesman in 2009.

• 2001: Norman Mashabane, ambassador to Indonesia. Mashabane (then-husband to Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, currently the minister of international relations) was found guilty of 22 counts of sexual harassment between 2001 and 2003. Nevertheless, then-foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma upheld his appeal. A court later found she should have fired him. He worked in the foreign affairs department until his contract expired in 2004. He died in a car crash in 2007.

• 2004: Yusuf Saloojee appointed ambassador to Iran. He was suspended on full pay in 2012 after it was alleged he got a bribe of $200000 in return for helping the MTN Group to secure a mobile operating licence in Iran. In 2013, he was cleared, with MTN, of wrongdoing by a commission set up by the company.

• 2010: Jon Qwelane appointed high commissioner to Uganda. Made several homophobic statements. His term ended last year. On his departure, it was alleged the high commission was "fraught with corruption and ineptitude".

• 2010: Ebrahim Rasool, the former Western Cape premier and ANC provincial leader, appointed ambassador to the US. He had been caught up in a cash-for-good-news scandal involving two journalists of the Cape Argus. It was alleged bribes had been paid for positive coverage of the provincial government.

• 2011: Miriam Segabutla appointed ambassador to Cuba. The public protector issued a damning report into her conduct as health MEC in Limpopo. It was alleged she awarded as much as R16-million in contracts to friends and associates. As she was no longer an MEC, it was deemed action could not be taken against her.

• 2011: Lassy Chiwayo appointed consul-general to China. In 2013, he was recalled after reports he was seen walking naked in the streets outside the Shanghai consulate. The department said in a statement: "Whilst on official duty in China he experienced health-related challenges which necessitated the termination of his posting ... He is receiving professional assistance from relevant units in the department."

• 2013: Zanele Makina appointed high commissioner to Cameroon. It was reported this year that Makina owed the Department of International Relations R390,000 for a stay at the Hilton Hotel in the capital, Yaoundé. She spiked the bill, however, and was reported missing for several weeks. The department claimed in response that she was, in fact, on the job.

• 2014: Bruce Koloane appointed ambassador to The Netherlands. Koloane was responsible for a private plane owned by the Gupta family landing at Air Force Base Waterkloof. After an inquiry, he was demoted to the position of liaison officer.

• 2015: Mohau Pheko, ambassador to Japan, misrepresented her CV. She claimed to have a PhD but it was found she never completed her studies. She said she regretted the deception.

Note: In a previous version of this online article a picture of a different Chris Ngcobo (former chief of the Johannesburg Metro Police and current security advisor for the City of Joburg) was mistakenly used. It has since been recitifed. The Sunday Times apologises for the error.

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