Dhlamini denies sending Sergeant Nkosi confidential tender document
· Citizen
It appears that suspended Sergeant Fannie Nkosi was playing the role of a middleman well, as the Madlanga commission on Tuesday heard of yet another instance where individuals communicated through him.
The commission previously heard that Nkosi acted as a middleman between suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya and attempted murder-accused Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala.
Visit mchezo.co.za for more information.
Nkosi has also told the commission that he played a peacemaker role between Sibiya and KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, after Sibiya called him to his office and asked him to contact Mkhwanazi and “try to make peace between them because they were not getting along at that particular time”.
On Tuesday, the commission heard that suspended Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) deputy chief Umashi Dhlamini and suspended City of Tshwane CFO Gareth Mnisi also communicated through Nkosi – a matter that commissioners took issue with.
In this instance, Dhlamini and Mnisi were discussing issues related to the payment of a service provider to the City of Tshwane but could not speak directly, so they communicated through Nkosi.
The result? Nkosi had access to documents not meant for the public.
The suspended official conceded that communicating City of Tshwane matters through Nkosi was “incorrect”, but denied it was “improper”.
Dhlamini: ‘It was already out there’
Dhlamini returned to the commission for cross-examination on allegations that he shared confidential documents with Nkosi.
The City of Tshwane advertised a security tender on 12 August 2024, with a closing date of 21 February 2025. The first meeting of the Bid Evaluation Committee (BEC) was on 24 March 2025, and it recommended an award on either 28 May or 29 May. However, the BEC resolved to cancel the tender on 23 October.
On 25 March 2025, Dhlamini sent Nkosi a draft BEC report for this tender, explaining that he had done so because Nkosi had requested a list of companies that had submitted bids. He said that on the day, the Tshwane website was down and Nkosi could not access the list; hence, he approached Dhlamini. Dhlamini requested the documents from the Supply Chain Management department.
‘Tender bids?’
However, what Dhlamini sent to Nkosi was not just a list of tender bids, but a draft BEC report for the tender. Dhlamini insisted it was a list of bids that he had sent and that the document was not confidential.
“It’s not a BEC report, SC. It’s a draft report that they are preparing, a close-out report that they usually put on the website. So it’s not a BEC report,” said Dhlamini.
“The document that you sent is not the Tender Bid Register that everyone has access to. It’s a draft administrative report that the public doesn’t have access to,” responded Chief Evidence Leader Matthew Chaskalson.
ALSO READ: Suspended Tshwane CFO denies links to Cat Matlala, calls Nkosi a ‘brother’
“When documents get received, what is prepared by the admin, it’s what you see from page 67 that I’ve attached to show up to page 88. This document [is] up to page 88, and this was already on the web. The website was off when the dev had already loaded this document on the web,” explained Dhlamini.
“This was already out there on the web when I forwarded it to Sergeant Nkosi in March. The challenge was that the website was down. Then my office requested the CM, and they gave them this draft administrative report. It’s what they use to prepare the closed-out report before they can load it into the system. So it’s not a BEC report.”
‘Documents not confidential’
The back-and-forth between Chaskalson and Dhlamini continued, with the suspended official insisting that what he sent to Nkosi was a publicly available bids list, while the advocate pointed out that the documents in question were not the same.
Commission Chair Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga then explained to Dhlamini.
“What this is, is a draft of a report that is being prepared for the BEC? They were preparing a closed-out report, as they had made a draft admin report before they completed to be this closed-out report that goes on their website. The closed-out report doesn’t go on the website. What goes on the website is the tender bid register,” explained Madlanga.
“The documents are different. That is a different document from the document that you sent to Sergeant Nkosi. What you sent to Sergeant Nkosi was not the bid register that you can access from the web. It was a draft of a closed-out report being prepared for the BEC.”
‘Same information’
Dhlamini said the document would have been published on the website.
“It contains the same information that was going to be accessed on that. It’s not a confidential document. It’s not a BEC report. The information that is contained in that document is available on the web. The challenge, we could not access the website on that day. The same information that is in the draft admin report is what was on the web. It gets uploaded,” he said.
“Deputy chief, the document, in so many words, says draft. Surely a draft is meant to be a final document at some stage. And whilst it is a draft, surely it’s a document that is still being worked on within the metro. So, if at any stage it is to be public, it will only be public once it’s final,” said Madlanga.
Commissioner Sesi Baloyi concluded the matter with Dhlamini admitting that the document he had sent to Nkosi had not been published on the website and was therefore not publicly available.