Former acting national police commissioner Lt-Gen Khomotso Phahlane has justified his decision to cancel a R92m contract for 360-degree panoramic cameras. <\/p>\n
The contract was originally awarded to Ethemba Forensic Group in July 2014 during Phahlane\u2019s tenure as the head of SAPS Forensic Services.<\/p>\n
Appearing before parliament\u2019s ad hoc committee on Wednesday, Phahlane maintained that his refusal to honour the contract was based on the product\u2019s failure to meet required technical specifications.<\/p>\n
Phahlane\u2019s decision and subsequent conduct led to his dismissal from the SAPS in 2020. Furthermore, the SAPS was ultimately ordered to pay a legal settlement of about R24m to Ethemba Forensic Group for a contract that resulted in zero cameras being delivered.<\/p>\n
The labour court previously ruled that Phahlane\u2019s conduct \u201cput in motion a sequence of events that ultimately led to significant financial loss to the [police]\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Phahlane stood by his actions, asserting he would not allow public funds to be wasted on inadequate equipment.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t let R92m go down the drain just because a glorified service provider was given a contract and I am expected to sign off on the order. I will never do that.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Lt-Gen Khomotso Phahlane, former acting national police commissioner <\/p>\n
\u201cI will never spend public funds on something that is not going to be used,\u201d Phahlane told the committee. <\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t let R92m go down the drain just because a glorified service provider was given a contract and I am expected to sign off on the order. I will never do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phahlane explained that after the contract was awarded, complaints regarding the product\u2019s quality arose from a competitor, Forensic Data Analysts (FDA).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was alleged that the product of the successful bidder did not comply with several criteria stipulated in the bid specifications,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The bid evaluation committee had originally shortlisted two companies: Ethemba and FDA. While both companies initially claimed their products met all requirements during site visits and demonstrations, Phahlane argued that critical flaws were discovered after the bid was awarded.<\/p>\n
Specifically, the contract required a spherical camera capable of capturing a full panoramic image in a single, motorised rotation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ethemba product does not provide a single-rotation scan,\u201d Phahlane said. \u201cInstead, it rotates and scans a limited view, repeating this process several times. This requires the user to \u2018stitch\u2019 the images together manually to create a panoramic view.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former top cop clashed with evidence leader Norman Arendse SC over the facts of the case. Arendse referenced an arbitrator\u2019s report that painted a different picture of Phahlane\u2019s role in the failed procurement.<\/p>\n
The report stated: \u201cThe applicant\u2019s [Phahlane\u2019s] conduct, in my view, was reckless at this stage. There was threatened legal action. The applicant held the view that supply chain was insistent on the procurement despite the alleged non-compliance. However, he failed to see that it was he, or his division, that made it difficult for supply chain to act appropriately in this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arbitrator further noted that it was insufficient for Phahlane to merely claim the equipment was non-compliant while failing to address official reports that indicated the equipment did, in fact, meet the necessary standards.<\/p>\n
The topic delayed proceedings of the committee, leading to MPs requesting the evidence leader to proceed to other matters as this was not part of the mandate of the committee. <\/p>\n
Proceedings continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former acting national police commissioner Lt-Gen Khomotso Phahlane has justified his decision to cancel a R92m contract for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[14874,14872,14865,14875,14866,14869,14724,14871,14876,14873,14870,131,14867,14868],"class_list":{"0":"post-24334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-360-degree-panoramic-cameras","9":"tag-arbitrators-report","10":"tag-bid-evaluation-committee","11":"tag-ethemba-forensic-group","12":"tag-forensic-data-analysts","13":"tag-labour-court-ruling","14":"tag-phahlane-dismissal","15":"tag-public-funds-misuse","16":"tag-r92m-camera-contract","17":"tag-r92m-panoramic-cameras","18":"tag-saps-forensic-services","19":"tag-south-africa","20":"tag-spherical-camera-requirements","21":"tag-technical-specifications-failure"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}