IPID Assistant Director for Investigations Takalani Zelda Maphosho came under fire at her appearance before the commissioners of the Madlanga Commission over the handling of an investigation involving officers implicated in the R300 million drug bust in Aeroton, Johannesburg, of 2021.
She had to answer concerns about her obviously accepting accusations at face value and not investigating deeper. The panel had questioned her technique and how she supported facts in the IPID’s queries to suspects based on complainants’ assertions.
Maphosho’s statement follows a session in which commissioners reviewed her investigation into the arrest of three law enforcement agents accused of attempting to steal cocaine obtained during one of Gauteng’s largest narcotics busts in July 2021. 
More than 750k of cocaine was captured at Aeroton in Johannesburg. Allegations that two SAPS officials, Warrant Officer Steve Phakula of the National Intervention Unit and Warrant Officer Marumo Magane of the Zonkizizwe police station, Gauteng traffic officer Samuel Mashaba and businessman Tumelo Nku, sought to illegally access the package overshadowed the seizure. They were arrested but filed a complaint with IPID, resulting in an investigation that is currently being thoroughly examined by the commission.
They fingered Major General Feroz Khan, the deputy head of crime intelligence and head of counter- and security intelligence; Major General Ebrahim Kadwa, the Gauteng Provincial Head of the Hawks; Brigadier Paulina Sekgobela, the acting provincial head of the Hawks in Gauteng; Colonel François Steyn, Gauteng Hawks Unit Commander and provincial narcotics coordinator; and Lieutenant Colonel Nkoana Joseph Sebola, an investigating officer.
Commission chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga challenged Maphosho over references in her documentation describing Nku as a police informer.
“Why do you call him an informer? Does it mean that you accepted he was an informer, because you are stating it as a fact?” Madlanga asked.
Maphosho said Nku provided that information at the time, stating, “I am stating this because that is the information that he gave us. However, the information was not verified because he mentioned a handler as a certain general who had already passed on.”
In another round of enquiries, Justice Madlanga raised concerns about the dog unit, which had to travel from Silverton in Pretoria to the crime scene in Johannesburg’s south.
Maphosho had stated that she thought the dog unit was a specialised unit ‘performing some type of special kind of investigation’ and felt they had authority to respond. The commission enquired if Johannesburg did not have its own dog squad that would respond to the incident.
“That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense,” Justice Madlanga said, to which Maphosho stated that she did not think to act on those suspicions at the time.
“Like I said, commissioners, we don’t normally investigate our complaints. What we do when a person gives us information is we take the statement; if there’s a need for us to follow up on the information, we do that,” she said.
The commission again raised a serious reservation about her expression of taking things at face value, stating that this is what led to her conclusion and the recommendations that she made.
“If you don’t interrogate what’s brought to you by your complainants, that may lead you to a wrong recommendation. Don’t you agree? Justice Madlanga asked, to which Maphosho said, “I agree, Commissioner.”
“We engaged you on this yesterday.
“Your evidence from yesterday, and even the things you said this morning, give me a distinct impression that you accepted any and everything that these complainants said to you, which is what then led to the recommendation you made in the end. You accepted without questioning whatsoever, the complainants said.
“It doesn’t matter, piling statement after statement, if you are not critical about what you are doing,” Madlanga stated.
Again Maphosho said, “Chair, I agree,” admitting to Justice Madlanga that her approach to the investigation was ‘skewed’ towards the version of the suspects in the matter.
