Mkhwanazi doubles down on allegations against DA MP

Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has doubled down on his allegations against Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament (MP) Dianne Kohler-Barnard.

During the second day of his hearing on Wednesday, the General suggested that he had more dirt on Kohler Barnard, who he accused of acting unlawfully by publicising “sensitive” Crime Intelligence information.

This followed a question from DA MP Lisa-Marie Schickerling, who asked Mkhwanazi about the allegations made against her colleague.

“Anything else that Kohler-Barnard was involved with, we’ll leave to off-camera discussions with the concerned bodies,” he told Schickerling.

“The nice thing is, people travel and they meet, and wherever they meet, there are cameras and people that are observing, and wherever they talk, there are footprints left on phones. Even if they delete messages, we retrieve them.”

The allegations against Kohler-Barnard first came to light when the KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner appeared before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.

Mkhwanazi alleged that she had shared classified information relating to the South African Police Service’s Crime Intelligence with the public, something Parliamentarians are restricted, by law, from doing.

What the General is referring to is a press release issued by Kohler-Barnard about her inquiry into the acquisition of two properties by Crime Intelligence, including the letter written to the Crime Intelligence General.

“I wrote to the Inspector General of Intelligence formally requesting an investigation into the dubious purchases of two properties by Crime Intelligence,” she said in her initial response to the allegations.

“My enquiries confirmed that no proper approach had been made to the Minister of Public Works for these properties, a fundamental legal requirement for such acquisitions.”

Prior to the committee starting, the MP said that she was hoping “he will finally apologise or retract the claim that he made on that initial day at the Madlanga Commission.”

“He claimed I had broken the law and I was a criminal, and I was part of a criminal syndicate,” something that she has strongly denied.

While Kohler-Barnard claimed that the information was already in the public domain as it had been part of a media report a few days earlier, Mkhwanazi said that it was not the MP’s place to spread the information further.

“If someone creates a pornographic film of an underage child, and you receive it and circulate it further, you are participating in the criminal offence,” he said.

“What a responsible lawmaker would have done is to go and investigate how the media gained access to this classified information.”

Kohler-Barnard was present in the committee meeting on Tuesday, when MPs were excluded from engaging with Mkhwanazi. However, she was not present on Wednesday, when it was the politicians’ turn to ask questions.

DA MP Ian Cameron told the committee that the party was consulting legal services regarding the matter.

Demands that Kohler-Barnard recuse herself

Members of the African National Congress and the MK Party demanded on Tuesday that Kohler-Barnard recuse herself from Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating General Mkhwanazi’s allegations.

“As the ANC, it is our view that Honourable Dianne Kohler-Barnard and the party she represents must act in a manner that protects the integrity of this process and parliament in general,” ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli said on Tuesday.

“We would like the DA and the member concerned to consider withdrawing her membership from the committee.”

MKP MP, David Skosana, supported this. “I would like to concur with the Honourable Ntuli. I said this before General Mkhwanazi provided the evidence. The Honourable member must recuse herself from the Committee.

The MK issued a statement on Wednesday morning arguing that the “conflict of interest and potential apprehension of bias are glaring and inescapable.”

Newsday reached out to the ANC and DA for comment but did not receive a response. Comment will be added once received.