A former Free State Saps administrative clerk says she is living in fear, after claiming she blew the whistle on massive corruption within the police service.
Patricia Morgan-Mashale was reportedly dismissed from her job last year and has been in hiding since February and surviving two assassination attempts.
Mashale’s claims, if true, would implicate a number of high-ranking officials.
‘Corrupt’, undocumented officials
Mashale claims to have proof of senior officials who are undocumented foreigners and were hired using fake identity documents, including the head of Criminal Intelligence in the Free State, Major-General Agnes Makhele.
Her exposé littered her Facebook feed with allegations when she lifted the lid on Saps corruption back in 2009. She said she has a report she submitted to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) to probe.
“The first time I blew the whistle on SAPS corruption was in 2009. There was an investigation by ICD,now known as IPID. [Minister of Police Bheki} Cele, Nathi Mthethwa and Godfrey Lebeya, Head of the DPCI (Hawks), buried this report.
“The appointments of friends and family in Crime Intelligence started a very long time ago. It just proceeded over the years, so imagine how many families and friends are currently working in CI.
“The children of the senior management who were called the better breed by Agnes Makhele,” Mashele wrote in a post on social media.
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She said Ipid failed to act on the report she submitted and that she was still awaiting feedback from the progress of their investigations.
Petition for protection
Mashale has since launched a petition pleading with President Cyril Ramaphosa to protect her, in light of his promise to protect whistleblowers.
After dropping “files” and bombshells against the officials, she survived another attempted hit, one she alleges was orchestrated by a senior general in the Free State.
“On 23 June, shots were fired at my brother, Shawn Meyers, in what was obviously an attempt to kill him. Had he not managed to quickly hide himself in someone’s yard, where those attacking him, in a white bakkie, continued to fire at him. [H]e could have died.”
Mashale further added that Free State management has been pressuring her brother to reveal her whereabouts.
Cele denies allegations
Speaking to The Citizen during a visit to Finetown, Johannesburg, Cele denied knowing Mashale, but later said he was open to having a conversation with her.
“I know they work really close with one gentleman. He used to be an advocate, Teffo, because I know he has been dismissed. They work very closely but those issues will be better served if we sit down and talk and bring the evidence on the matters rather than shouting from the other side,” said Cele.
However, Mashale said Cele was lying, and that she had phone records of a conversation she allegedly had with the minister in June.
“I have records that he called me on 6 June, claiming that he was not aware of my situation. He told me that he was on his way to Parliament but he wants a meeting with me the next Wednesday, he will arrange for my travel and accommodation if I could meet with him alone in GP.
“I told him that he was a minister of lies because he knows me very well and I will never go to GP on my own because I don’t trust him.”
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