Bart Henderson is a leading forensic auditor and CEO of Henderson Solutions, an enterprise risk management firm.

A senior director at the SAPS ICT unit stated in 2009: “I emphatically deny any allegations of fraud and or corruption as was indicated in the ‘Henderson’ Report. They are mere allegations and need to be tested”.

The report referred to was the State IT Agency (SITA) Risk Assessment of the agency’s procurement process, completed in 2008, by Henderson Solutions. Among large-scale irregularities within SITA, the report also uncovered links between the SAPS ICT unit and front companies, as well as conflicts of interest involving senior SAPS personnel.

Two and a half years later, the Hawks are investigating allegations of corruption within the SA Police Service ICT division, police minister Nathi Mthethwa has said. Speaking in the National Assembly during debate on his budget vote, Mthethwa said he had, in the past two years, emphasised the need to look at policing more smartly and the need to get value for money from the amount spent on technology.

Firstly, he had instructed that the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (the Hawks) to conduct a comprehensive investigation into allegations of corruption in the Technology Services Management (TMS) environment.

“Secondly, I have instructed that I expect by the end of May 2012 to receive a plan from TMS regarding a turnaround strategy, with clear plans on what they will spend on over the next five years and how.”

We have now had two commissioners of police, both of whom were associating and, in fact, fraternising with criminals when they were meant to be putting them behind bars.

Jackie Selebi was fraternising with Glenn Agliotti, a known drug kingpin, smuggler and criminal. Bheki Cele, we are told, was not only implicated in the police headquarters and crime intelligence building lease scandal, but also had close ties to the criminal fraternity and, in particular, to a convicted drug dealer, Panganathan “Timmy” Marimuthu.

Given this state of affairs, one would expect that president Jacob Zuma" rel=tag>Jacob Zuma and his minister of police, Mthethwa, would proceed with care and circumspection in the appointment of senior police.

The minister – one has to assume with the blessing of the president – proceeded to appoint Richard Mdluli as head of crime intelligence, who might even be or have been in the running for appointment as the next national commissioner of police.

This is an individual accused of having been involved in the murder of his rival in a love triangle, Oupa Ramogibe. Mdluli says murder and fraud allegations are all part of a racist-driven plot against him.

In an interview with the Mail & Guardian, published on 11 May 2012, Mdluli claimed white journalists and white policemen brought from the Western Cape were targeting him, but that he was confident he would be cleared and get his job back. In a letter to Zuma that was leaked to the media, Mdluli alleged that Hawks boss Anwa Dramat was also plotting against him.

In the meantime, it’s also reported seven family members – among them Mdluli’s wife (a colonel), his former wife (also a colonel), his daughter (a lieutenant-colonel), his son (a captain) and three in-laws – were employed by crime intelligence in 2010 and were still in service. Ostensibly, these appointments were on the orders of Mdluli. The Hawks investigators have said in a report the family members who were employed had no experience in IT.

The SAPS is at the forefront of the defence and protection of our individual rights and freedoms. The right to freedom, dignity, safety and security supersedes all other rights. Without these rights, all others cannot be assured.

To be even discussing these issues and defending the ones tainted by the allegations, considering the charges in a coherent modern democracy, speaks of an arrogance and narcissism that defies all logic or comprehension.

The fact is, effective policing without effective ICT-driven crime intelligence is as useful against modern crimes and criminals as a tribe of cave dwellers against a Tomahawk missile – figuratively and literally.

Mthethwa has said he had instructed the Hawks to conduct a comprehensive investigation into allegations of corruption in the SAPS TMS environment. Perhaps we can assist the minister and the Hawks in this endeavour by drawing attention to matters that remain outstanding since 2009 in the SAPS TMS environment.

My investigation and the subsequent SITA Risk Assessment Report uncovered links between various companies, such as Inkanyiso, CEOS, Waymark Infotech, 4 Sight Consulting and SITA, as well as the SAPS.

In November 2009, in response to media questions, the director mentioned at the beginning of this column, stated: “It brings me to the point that if Hendersons (sic) went to the source documents, they would have found that there is (sic) no links between Inkanyiso and CEOS and all the other companies mentioned in their report.

“I am a director of 4 Sight Consulting (Pty) Ltd # 2005/019856/07.9/17/2009. The company was formed in 2005 with the main purpose to secure the name. From inception up to now, the company did not do any deals and is, therefore, dormant.”

The director goes on to name two individuals who formed Inkanyiso (Pty) Ltd and says: “I merely advised them with the establishment of the company and from there the link to the audit firm – Du Toit, Greef and du Plooy, who is also the auditors who are known to me. They work as contractors for Waymark Infotech and were previously employed by SAPS.”

One of these individuals applied for personal credit and provided “employer” as both Waymark Infotech and SAPS (presumed South African Police Service). Meyer responds: “Please contact her to verify this information.”

The other, in turn, had applied at various banks for retail credit and vehicle finance, giving Democratic Cleaning, Waymark and SAPS as her employers – at the time she was also a director of Inkanyiso.

It seems that Inkanyiso Technologies began trading in 2007 when the two aforementioned people found their way to Waymark. What is interesting about this is the matter of Waymark’s turnover during this period.

During 2006/7 and 2007/8 Waymark was doing a measly R4.3 million turnover through SITA, however, Waymark hit paydirt in 2008/9 when it was paid R19.1 million by SITA. What turnover it did with SAPS directly, only the SAPS knows.

Foursight IT Business Solutions and CEOS Technologies PLK share the same landline contact number on SITA’s supplier database and a Google Internet search of the digits (015) 295-3992 yielded a further positive result of another company simply listed as “Bula”, also sharing the same landline contact number.

CEOS is linked through SITA source documents to both Bula and Foursight, through the same landline number, and each number that came up was verified in different source documents from different sources.

However, the SAPS director says he knows nothing about CEOS, Foursight or Bula.

A document that is a “CONTRACT CIRCULAR FOR RFB 569 TO ALL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS” lists Bula, CEOS and Inkanyiso as approved suppliers for the South African Police Services and the biggest client of SITA under RFB 569. It is evidenced from SITA Contracts page RFB 153 that Waymark, Bula and CEOS are approved on RFB 153 too.

RFB 569 and RFB 153 are contracts that allow companies to quote to supply products and services, instead of tendering. The contracts are three-year contracts and are driven by opex, not capex, which means these contracts are a licence to print money if you can get in on the contracts.

When you have definite links between companies, well then there’s no real competitive quoting is there?

Then of course there’s RFT 285/1, which again houses Waymark, Bula, CEOS and Inkanyiso.

What this all means is that the companies are all linked directly and all are approved vendors, which, in turn, means you have collusive practices, which the head honcho at SAPS denies all knowledge of.

I haven’t asked about the R1 million loan granted to Inkanyiso by the banks when, for all intents and purposes, the “owners” didn’t haven’t a penny to their name. Who stood surety? Maybe Inkanyiso can answer, but, well their answer is “talk to our lawyers”.

How much revenue has the SAPS IT unit spent on Bula, CEOS, Inkanyiso and Waymark from 2006 to 2009?

Corruption, people, isn’t some abstract concept that gets discussed around a coffee table! Corruption is a concept constructed upon causal links where X marks the spot.