The Hawks swooped on the George Municipality this week as part of a search and seizure operation.

While it was not disclosed what the commercial crime investigation team had seized, Regional Hawks spokesperson Captain Philani Nkwalase said several offices and the private homes of people of interest were raided on Tuesday.

“This investigation relates to the alleged fraud and corruption emanating from the failure to follow due process regarding the appointment and filling of vacant posts,” he said.

He could not name anyone at this stage, as no one had yet been charged or arrested.

Nkwalase said the investigation was separate and unrelated to the previous search and seizure at the same municipality.

In April last year, electronic equipment and documents were seized at the municipality offices.

At the time, Nkwalase said the investigation centred around allegations of fraud and corruption in procurement processes and the awarding of tenders.

That operation was carried out at business premises and private homes of those being investigated.

‘It is mind boggling’

Activities at the municipality carried on as normal on Wednesday, with all staff present.

Municipal manager Trevor Botha said the Hawks operation related to the legal processes followed in the appointment of a senior official.

“The Hawks are at liberty to perform their duties as required. What is of concern is the process followed regarding a governance and administrative matter,” he said.

“It is mind boggling that a reported case, pertaining to the unprocedural and irregular investment of R350m by a senior official, has to date not elicited the same response from senior provincial politicians or the Hawks,” he said.

In April, Good party leader Patricia de Lille laid a complaint with the Public Protector over what she alleged was an investment and kickback scheme in the DA-led George Municipality, involving a councillor and his son.

According to De Lille, evidence showed that the municipality had invested R350m of its reserve funds at financial institutions, and that handling fees were paid to the son of a George councillor, amounting to nearly R400 000 in the first six months of the project.

De Lille’s claims ‘unfounded’

However, Western Cape Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell said at the time that De Lille’s claims were unfounded. He said the provincial government was fully aware of the allegations.

“A criminal matter has been reported to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) in George – known as the Hawks – and the provincial department has been in frequent contact with the DPCI in this regard.

“In addition, the municipality has procured the services of a forensic firm to investigate the allegations and the provincial department is further aware that the municipality has in fact, already initiated disciplinary processes against the implicated municipal official.”

He said the provincial government was also aware that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) might explore the possibility of a proclamation into the matter if there was sufficient cause.

Botha said on Wednesday that their continued cooperation and assistance was being given to the Hawks following the operation on Tuesday.

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AfricArena has teamed up with the SA SME Fund to launch the SA Startup Nation Challenge. This is an exciting opportunity for South African tech startups with distinctive products, unique technologies and ambitious founding teams to be scaled up.

This story is part of a three-part “Gang Wars” series, which this week focuses on Hanover Park.

Since the start of the year, 45 people have been murdered in Hanover Park in the Western Cape and 12 people lost their lives to violence in June, the bloodiest month in the gang-ravaged area this year.

Escalated gang violence erupted in the Cape Flats suburb in April. Eight people were killed that month, eight in May and 12 in June.

READ: Gang Wars Part 1 | ‘When you live in Hanover Park, you know death’ – mom’s anguish after son, 21, gunned down

According to sources, the recent escalation in violence is due to a turf war between the Americans and the Ghetto Kids, further fuelled by retaliation killings.

They are two of the biggest and most dangerous gangs in Hanover Park.

Touted as an enabler to a much bigger strategy in combating gun and gang violence, the City of Cape Town launched the multi-million rand Shot Spotter gunfire detection technology pilot project in Hanover Park five years ago.

In three months, the data showed that 1 106 shots had been fired in 344 recorded incidents.

READ Gang Wars Part 2: An age-old problem in Hanover Park, but with a younger face

On 21 of those days, only a single gunshot was recorded. There were seven days where no gunshots were recorded.

The highest number of gunshots fired in a single incident was 25, the data showed. Last July, a staggering 883 gunshots were fired, that equates to around 28 a day.

Most of the shootings recorded occurred between 20:00 and 05:00 and incidents peaked between 23:00 and 03:00, the numbers indicated.

According to Shot Spotter data for 2018, 3 787 bullets were fired in Hanover Park in 1 222 separate incidents.

In the first three months of this year, 1 208 shots were fired in 389 incidents.

According to the provincial Department of Community Safety, analysis of the police’s crime statistics for the last financial year showed that 83% – or 808 – of gang-related murders in the country were recorded in the Western Cape.

In the province’s 26 gang hot-spot precincts, 45% of the 3 729 murders, 56% of the attempted murders and 57% of the gun-related offences were recorded.

The role of illegal firearms

According to advocacy group Gun Free SA, gang violence has become endemic in Cape Town, largely as a result of illegal firearms being distributed to the Cape Flats.

In 2019, nearly 2 000 people have died from gun violence in the last financial year. The public reported the loss or theft of 24 guns every day.

To avoid similar cases and to stop gun violence from escalating even further, the NGO on Global Gun Destruction Day – July 9 – urged police to destroy seized and surrendered firearms.

“It is globally recognised that destroying excess, unwanted and recovered firearms, ammunition and firearm parts is the only way to guarantee that these are not leaked into the illegal pool of weapons,” Gun Free SA’s director Adèle Kirsten said.

Guns have replaced knives as the leading cause of murder in South Africa, the organisation said. Currently, 23 people are shot and killed every day. A marked increase from the 18 a day in 2009.

Where to next for the Anti-Gang Unit?

President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the Anti-Gang Unit in Hanover Park last year.

He said the national anti-gang strategy sought to address gangsterism in a holistic manner with a focus on “street level outreach, community development, conflict mediation and changing community norms in order to reduce violence and criminality”.

In June, Minister of Police Bheki Cele said the unit did not have enough officers and the police were looking at other ways to curb crime in the province.

He eventually escalated it to his national office, amid reported infighting, budgeting and capacity constraints, and a highly publicised botched operation in Philippi last month that saw five Anti-Gang Unit members shot and injured.

Following the incident, the unit’s head, General André Lincoln, in a scathing letter, requested that three officers be removed from the unit due to a “trust breakdown”.

Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant General Khombinkosi Jula has now also been offered a move back to KwaZulu-Natal amid reports of internal conflict in the provincial offices.

READ: Police mull moving Western Cape police commissioner to KZN

Last week, community activist Colin Arendse claimed the Anti-Gang Unit had not been allocated a sufficient budget.

He added it had to compete with a second unit, the major offences reaction team (MORT), saying police stations and specialised units were denuded when officers were redeployed to it. Cele is probing the claims.

This week, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde confirmed that more than 2 300 people have been murdered in the province between November 2018, when the Anti-Gang Unit was launched, and May this year.

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It was meant to be a 2-minute walk to the corner shop for Ashtivon Gaffley. The electricity units at his Hanover Park home were running low and his father asked him to top it up so that they wouldn’t be in the dark.

Instead, he became one of 12 people murdered in the gang-ridden neighbourhood last month.

The 21-year-old never returned home after taking his last stroll with a friend on Tuesday June 11, 2019. At 12:30, in clear view of other pedestrians, he was shot as he tried to flee when gangsters opened fire in Athburg Walk.

Two shots were heard. One bullet missed. The other hit him in the back.

His mother Martine Gaffley had been at work in the city centre, where she is employed as an office cleaner, when a relative phoned her and urged her to go home immediately.

“When the driver dropped me at the corner of my street, I heard my seven-year-old daughter scream. She had been on her way home from school when she saw the body lying in the street. Her brother, my son, had been shot. He was dead.”

Ashtivon had died in his father’s arms, only two doors away from their home.

The sickly man had felt the blood bubbling from his son’s back as he tried to speak. He was dead before he could tell his dad what he had wanted to say.

According to witnesses, Ashtivon had pushed his friend who had accompanied him as well as another man out of the way as he fled the bullets.

Neighbours told Gaffley that her son had not been the intended target. She heard that after he was hit, Ashtivon continued to run. He called for his father who had come out of their house to see what had happened.

“His dad cries for him every night, because he saw Ashtivon’s legs eventually give way as he fell to the ground. Our son never got up again.”

His body had already been covered when she sat down on the pavement next to him.

“I opened his face and cried over him. I cried. My boy looked so peaceful. He could have been asleep, if it wasn’t for the blood running from his nose and mouth.”

Martine still hasn’t come to terms with Ashtivon’s death. He was scheduled to leave for Namibia on June 14, three days after his murder.

“We wanted him to get out of Hanover Park. There was nothing here for him, except danger and hopelessness. But he didn’t make it until his departure date.”

When you live in an area plagued by gangsterism, you teach your children survival skills, Gaffley said.

“I taught them that when you hear a shot, you lie down on the ground until it stops. It worked when my eldest son almost got caught in crossfire – he dropped the bag of potatoes he had been carrying, threw himself into someone’s yard and stayed down. Ashtivon shouldn’t have run. Then today I still would have had my three kids, not two.”

Western Cape police spokesperson Captain FC Van Wyk confirmed the incident.

According to him, a 21-year-old suspect was arrested.

No response was received when asked for further details and whether the suspect has appeared in court.

Gaffley said a detective had informed her that an arrest had been made, but later told her that the suspect could not be linked to Ashtivon’s murder.

“There are witnesses who saw what had happened, but nobody wants to come forward. And even if they catch the person who murdered him, that won’t bring him back to me,” she said.

“My son wasn’t a gangster. He didn’t have a tjappie (tattoo) on his body. He was a cheeky boy who had an answer for everything, but he was harmless. Everyone knew he couldn’t even fight.”

The Gaffleys have lived in Hanover Park for almost 20 years. Situated about 17 km outside Cape Town, the police’s Anti-Gang Unit was launched in the area by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year.

But Gaffley said she was yet to feel the effect of the specialised police team.

“It’s not lekker (good) to live here. Gangsters shoot and kill as they try to take over the streets. Bullets are fired here every day. If I had the means, I would move out today. But I can’t,” she said.

Athburg Walk in Hanover Park where Ashtivon Gaffley was shot. (Tammy Petersen, News24)

“This isn’t a safe place to raise your children, especially boys. They are intimidated to join the gangs. If they don’t, they get targeted and hurt. The consequences are bad, no matter what choice they make.”

If she could, she would have kept her children indoors around the clock.

“But that wouldn’t be fair on them. I couldn’t lock them up every day. As long as he was not out looking for trouble or putting himself in harm’s way, I had peace. Ashtivon loved playing dominoes with the neighbours and watching the comings and goings in the street. There wasn’t much else for him to do.

“But when he stepped out of the house, I would pray. I prayed and prayed and prayed for the blood of Jesus over my children, that they would always be safe. I knew what could happen to them. Because when you live in Hanover Park, you know death. You know people who have been murdered. It’s just how it is.”

She dreams of packing up and moving to a more peaceful area where she no longer has to panic every time a family member sets foot outside the door.

“But for now, there is nowhere else to go. We are stuck here, watching the children who grew up in front of us end up terrorising their own community.”

This story is part of a three-part “Gang Wars” series, this week focussing on Hanover Park. Parts 2 and 3 will be published on Monday and Tuesday.

Do you have a similar story to tell? Email feedback@news24.com

The Public Protector’s findings regarding former SARS commissioner Ivan Pillay are legally and factually incorrect and showed a lack of understanding of the revenue service as an institution, his lawyer said.

A statement drafted by Pillay’s lawyer, Bernard Hotz, shortly after Busisiwe Mkhwebane announced her findings, stated that his client “emphatically denies all of the findings, which are factually and legally flawed”.

Earlier on Friday, the Public Protector released her final report regarding her investigation into allegations of maladministration, corruption and improper conduct by SARS.

In the report, the Public Protector found that:

The establishment of the intelligence unit was unlawful;

Pillay had already begun recruiting members for the intelligence unit before former SARS commissioner Pravin Gordhan submitted a memorandum to former finance minister Trevor Manuel;

Under this unit, the report says, irregular and unlawful operations were carried out and “intelligence equipment” for the purposes of gathering intelligence, was irregularly procured;

Pillay and Andries Janse van Rensburg, another former SARS official, irregularly procured or authorised the services of Helgard Lombard and Johan de Waal to intercept communication in the offices of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) and the National Prosecuting Authority without proper approval;

Pillay was appointed to the position of SARS commissioner without the necessary qualifications.

Also read: SARS and the ‘rogue’ unit: the ultimate guide

In a statement, Hotz criticised these findings, saying they “seem to demonstrate that either no, or at best very little investigations, were conducted”.

He further indicated that Pillay would study the report Mkhwebane released on Friday, thereafter, he would institute legal proceedings.

“Once Mr Pillay and his legal representatives have had the opportunity of studying the Public Protector’s report, Mr Pillay will institute the appropriate legal proceedings for the protection and enforcement of his rights.”

Pillay requested that his initial affidavit, which was submitted to the Public Protector in June, be released. He said the affidavit had seemingly been disregarded by Mkhwebane in her investigation.

Hotz said in the 139-page affidavit, in which Pillay lambasted the allegations against him, that:

The investigation feeds into what he calls “the rogue unit narrative”, which “has re-emerged as a part of the post-state capture pushback by those whose interests are endangered by the exposure of systematic corruption and the restoration of clean governance in this country”;

The Public Protector lacked jurisdiction over the complaints as there are no “special circumstances” that would allow her to investigate;

He further slammed the Public Protector whom, he said, “appears to have adopted a position that will brook no disagreement with her, which assumes that any challenge to her utterances, whether on social media, in public addresses or in her reports, amounts to interference with her work”;

The Public Protector failed to consider certain facts and evidence, arriving at a “narrow and blinkered reading of legislation” while ignoring the law. He added that in limiting her inquiry, it rendered her preliminary findings, “irrational, erroneous and invalid”;

He said the Public Protector failed to be impartial and approached the investigation with bias.

Regarding the allegations levelled against him in Mkhwebane’s preliminary findings, Pillay backed up his claims.

He said: “Neither covert and discreet investigation, nor the practice of collecting intelligence, nor the practice of collecting actual or potential evidence, finding information that would guide investigations, investigating, identifying witnesses and whistle-blowers … can remotely be considered as improper, unlawful, illegal or questionable in any manner or form.”

He added the only limitation in law in this regard related specifically to conducting “covert intelligence” specifically in relation to “national security” matters, which were both terms defined in law.

While Mkhwebane said Pillay had not possessed the necessary qualification to be appointed as SARS commissioner, he said his qualifications for the appointment were taken into account, and it was found that he had been equipped to fill the position.

He said he suspected that, in this regard, Mkhwebane was referring to his lack of a degree, to which he replied that he had gained “the skills, equivalent experience and leadership experience that I have accumulated over a lifetime”.

Regarding the irregular procurement of “intelligence equipment”, Pillay denied that the unit, at any point in time, “used, purchased or otherwise obtained” such equipment.

Pillay added in 2015, “the State Security Agency and [former chief officer for business and individual tax, Jonas] Makwakwa took control and possession of the equipment that belonged to ACAS [anti-corruption and security unit]. It was stated that it was an “open secret at SARS and everybody were [sic] laughing their heads off because it was ACAS storage room the was searched for [National Research Group] equipment”.

On the establishment of the intelligence unit, Pillay said: “Despite intense, often underhanded criminal investigations conducted by the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority, since May 16, 2015 … no person has been charged with the establishment of the unit.

“That is for a simple enough reason – the establishment of the unit was perfectly lawful, despite the NPA and Hawks having adopted the term ‘rogue unit’, as if it was a fact,” he continued.

It is clear from the affidavit that extensive investigations have been done outside the Public Protector’s office into these allegations that Pillay has had to time and time again refute.

In the statement, Hotz repeated what had been said in the affidavit, that “some of the findings demonstrate: (i) a complete lack of an understanding of SARS as an institution; (ii) some of the findings are patently false; and (iii) it is apparent that misinformation has been provided to the Public Protector”.