Booysen takes job fight to court

Suspended KZN Hawks head Major-General Johan Booysen will again be in court asking a judge to order that he be reinstated.

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Durban - Suspended KZN Hawks head Major-General Johan Booysen will be in court again on Monday morning, asking a judge to order that he be reinstated to his post.

He claims his suspension last week – for what he says was a typographical error on a document he did not author – was yet another attempt to stop him investigating corruption involving senior police officers and KZN provincial commissioner Brigadier Mmamonnye Ngobeni.

So far, in what he says is a campaign to get rid of him, Booysen has turned to the courts to fend off three other attempts to suspend him.

Criminal charges of racketeering were also withdrawn after a judge ruled there was no evidence to support them, and he was cleared of misconduct charges at a disciplinary inquiry.

He also has an interdict against police commissioner Riah Phiyega, stopping her from dismissing him after he rejected her offers of early retirement on full benefits.

Last week Booysen was suspended again, this time by his new boss, national Hawks head Lieutenant-General B M Ntlemetza, on an allegation that he committed fraud in 2008 in a memorandum recommending monetary awards to himself and members of the now-disbanded Cato Manor organised crime unit for an investigation into the murder of a police officer.

Booysen has submitted a copy of the memorandum to the court, showing that he was neither the author of the document nor did he approve the recommendation.

He says the alleged fraud was merely a “typographical error”, that the facts contained in the document are all correct but the author, Lieutenant-Colonel Willie Olivier, had mistakenly used an eight (representing the month August) instead of a nine (September) in the CAS number.

Booysen said because he was a potential recipient of the award – R10 000 – he did not sign the document but instead sent it to his boss, assistant commissioner Pat Brown, who signed it.

“The award would then have been scrutinised and approved by awards committees at provincial and national level.

“Commissioner Brown’s recommendation was scrutinised by three deputy commissioners, an assistant commissioner and a director, all of whom approved the payment.

“Notwithstanding this detailed trail of authorisation, I am the only officer who is deemed to have acted dishonestly,” Booysen says in his affidavit.

He said Brown, who was now retired, had told him he had already been approached by Ntlemetza and had given him a statement that accorded with what Booysen said.

He had also explained all of this in writing to Ntlemetza, who clearly had an “ulterior motive” for suspending him.

“Brown is a trusted former employee who said I was not the author, nor did I recommend payment … the only reasonable inference is that Ntlemetza is acting in a mala fide manner, and his conduct is unlawful.”

Booysen said he was currently involved in “high-level and important investigations” involving the KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner that would be prejudiced if he was not allowed to work.

“In fact, I believe that is the very purpose of my suspension.”

Booysen has previously alleged that Ngobeni attempted to stop an investigation into police tender fraud in which businessman Thoshan Panday – who paid for a birthday party for Ngobeni’s husband – was the main suspect.

Ngobeni has denied any wrongdoing.

She denies interfering in the investigation and says Panday was just a “service provider” who organised the party, and she paid him for it.

 

Hawks spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi confirmed that the application would be opposed.

The Mercury