S.Africa fraud buster slams top cop over lease deal

A corruption investigator ruled Thursday that South Africa's national police chief was guilty of "maladministration" in a lease deal that saw police try to pay three times the market rate for a building. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela slammed Police Commissioner Bheki Cele for his handling of the deal, which saw police offer 1.16 billion rand ($169 million, 119 million euros) to a politically connected real estate magnate for a 10-year lease that her investigators found was worth less than one-third that amount. "The failure of the national commissioner to ensure that the procurement process complied with the said legal requirements... resulted in the invalid conclusion of the lease agreement to the detriment of the state, and therefore constituted maladministration," she said in a briefing on her office's report on the deal. Madonsela said her team had uncovered no evidence of criminality, but found the agreement was illegitimate and unlawful. She said Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa should discipline the police chief, and also urged President Jacob Zuma to consider taking action against Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde for failing to cooperate with her investigation. Police said they had not had enough time to study the report and would release an official response early next week. The deal involved a bid to lease a new police headquarters in the eastern port city of Durban from Roux Shabangu, a real estate tycoon who has described himself as a friend of the president. Madonsela's investigation came on the heels of an earlier probe into a similar lease deal in Pretoria that found Cele guilty of misconduct for trying to lease a national police headquarters from Shabangu at an inflated price. That investigation found the police had rejected a deal to rent the same space at a lower price from a previous owner, costing taxpayers an extra 12.2 million rand in the first year of the lease. Madonsela's investigations of alleged graft in the upper echelons of government have raised concerns that she could face a backlash for her scrutiny. In March police came to her office demanding documents from her investigation into the Pretoria lease agreement, eight days after she released her sharply critical report on the deal. The incident raised concern that Cele's officers were trying to intimidate the graft buster, prompting the police chief's office to deny ordering the visit and promise an investigation "to deal with the people that are responsible". But police have not yet released any findings of the inquiry. Last week a leading newspaper ran a report saying Madonsela was about to be arrested on corruption charges. Madonsela denied any wrongdoing and questioned the timing of the report, which came out a day before she was due to brief the media on her investigations. The police chief denied Madonsela was facing arrest, and promised an investigation into the origin of the report.