Suspended Tshwane Metro Police Department officer for road policing Major Lebogang Phiri has defended his authority to handle ad hoc security services.
Image: Oupa Mokoena / Independent Newspapers
Suspended Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) officer for road policing, Major Lebogang Phiri, has defended his authority to manage ad hoc security services, stating his superiors delegated it to him.
Phiri, a City of Tshwane employee since 2008, has been accused of flouting TMPD's procurement processes by allocating security sites for critical municipal infrastructure to security firms without authorisation.
Testifying at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Thursday, he disputed allegations that he independently assigned contract work to private companies, bypassing internal controls and procurement procedures.
The allegations were brought up by TMPD Deputy Commissioner for Training and Innovation Sean Bolhuis, who recently testified that the deployment process was flawed.
Bolhuis was the caretaker of the Asset Protection and Security Services (APSS) at TMPD from July 2024 to March 2025.
The unit, APSS is charged with safeguarding critical municipal infrastructure and employed private security firms.
Bolhuis testified that emergency ad hoc security services were mismanaged to the point that Tshwane, at one stage, had 43 ad hoc security services, costing the city millions of rand.
Phiri said: "I didn't just wake up and become a rogue inspector at that time and started deploying."
He told the commission he was charged with coordinating and commanding security services for municipal infrastructure sites.
He shared with the commission an email trail detailing how he was delegated to run the security deployment.
He referenced an email written to his director supervisor, Dr Kapeng Madihlaba, by Director of Assets Tshukudu Malatji that stated: "Please get Phiri to run with the process (related to deployment of security services) and let's monitor the progress."
According to Phiri, the email's content explicitly stated that he needed to run the deployment process.
He explained that he derives his authority to issue instructions from Malatji and that the instruction to provide ad hoc security for water and sanitation was issued via email on January 9, 2025.
Phiri said: "My designation role was akin to security coordinator for municipal departments experiencing vulnerabilities."
He told the commission that when a user department required security assistance, Malatji would provide him with instructions, often via email, to facilitate the necessary deployment timeously.
He addressed allegations that Gubis 85 Solutions, a security company, was favoured over 21 other service providers in the TMPD multimillion-rand tender.
The company was allegedly paid R59 million and allocated 37 infrastructure sites, exceeding other service providers in both payments and site allocations.
Bolhuis told the commission that, in his capacity as caretaker, he did not allocate the sites to Gubis 85 Solutions and did not instruct Phiri to do so, nor give him permission or delegate authority.
Phiri said: "There were assertions that in May 2024, this company was deployed to a certain site somewhere, and I was involved. It is incorrect. People were just shifting the blame to me. This question of why they were using it. I was not involved. I started being involved in January 2025," he said, in reference to the deployment of Gubis.
He stated that Gubis was used, but their services were not paid for approximately seven months.
He said he was not responsible for giving Gubis many sites, but rather, the company was allocated sites by the management of water and sanitation through their representatives and Herman Segolela Engineering Consultants.
Phiri's testimony is under way
rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za