CFO Avhashoni Ramikosi's name featured prominently in questionable financial transactions amounting to R106 million.
National Police Commissioner General Khehla Sitole told parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that SAPS CFO Lieutenant-General Avhashoni Ramikosi and the police’s technology chief Lieutenant-General Adeline Shezi have been suspended.
They have been implicated in a series of questionable contracts which SARS entered into with service provider Forensic Data Analysts (FDA), which amounted to R106 million in expenditure in three years.
After FDA, which supplies critical infrastructure and technological equipment used by SAPS in forensic investigations, threatened to shut down the criminal justice system in April - because SAPS hadn’t paid them between December 2017 and March 2018 - Scopa facilitated an investigation into the “suspect contracts”.
Three of the 23 officials implicated resigned during the investigation and one quit during a disciplinary process. Two are undergoing disciplinary actions and 17 are still being investigated.
Ramikosi’s name also appeared in the VBS “Great Bank Heist” report. He admitted to the report’s author Terry Motau that while he was serving as a non-executive director and chairman of the VBS audit committee, he received unlawful payments through a front company.
