DA’s R500,000 crime reward raises questions as police say they were not consulted - IOL

The Democratic Alliance's R500,000 reward for information on the deaths of women in Ekurhuleni has not been discussed with police, with a senior police officer questioning how the offer would fit into the established reward process.

Police say they do not know the details or conditions of a R500,000 cash reward announced by the Democratic Alliance for information that could assist an investigation into the deaths of several women in Ekurhuleni. 

Speaking to the media after the discovery of a ninth woman’s body in the metro in nine weeks, Deputy National Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Tebello Mosikili said the police had an established process for rewards offered in connection with investigations.

Mosikili was speaking after the partially clothed body of a woman, believed to be about 30 years old, was found in an open space on Lama Street in the Villa Lisa area of Boksburg, near a railway line and an informal settlement, on Thursday morning.

Police said her throat had been slit.

She was wearing only a blue T-shirt and pink underwear. Her identity had not been established.

When an IOL team arrived at the scene, residents wearing slippers, dressing gowns and blankets gathered to find out what had happened.

Police said preliminary information indicated that the woman had been killed elsewhere before her body was dumped in Dawn Park.

The discovery came a day after the DA announced a R500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the deaths of eight women in Ekurhuleni.

DA Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate Khathutshelo Rasilingwane announced the reward outside Kempton Park Police Station on Wednesday.

“The DA stands here to announce significant support to the investigation. We are offering R500,000 as a reward for information that will lead to the successful arrest of these individuals who are behind the killings of the eight women,” Rasilingwane said.

She said the reward was intended to encourage people with information to come forward.

However, Mosikili said police had not been informed of the conditions attached to the DA's offer.

“I know the informants will be in the communities. That is where we are getting information,” she said.

“Only law enforcement and the state authority can comment on or confirm that they are putting forward the reward. What the DA has suggested, I don't know how they are going to be combining it.”

Mosikili said the police had an established process for rewards offered in connection with investigations.

She questioned how the DA's reward would be incorporated into that system and said she would have preferred the political party to work with the state.

“How the attempts and references of doing so, whether they are legally correct to be pronounced on, I think what I would have done was to partner and collaborate with the state because this is a state issue,” she said.

Information supplied to the police would continue to be handled through the established reward process.

“As far as the police are concerned, there is a process that is followed when a reward is pronounced. There is a committee that will evaluate what is presented with the person that has provided the information,” Mosikili said.

She was referring to the R400,000 reward previously announced by acting National Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane.

“That R400,000 that was declared by the acting national commissioner will follow all the due processes in terms of our informal reward system,” she said.

Speaking to IOL, Rasilingwane said the party had agreed that the matter would be handled through the police.

“Any leads into the investigation must go through that platform before they can even get to us as the Democratic Alliance. We are saying that we will make those resources, or R500,000, available as soon as there are any leads that go to SAPS. The police will then communicate with us to say there is information that is leading to an arrest, as well as any prosecution that may take place.

“That way, we will then make the funds available to be handled through SAPS.”

Asked whether the party had first communicated with police about the reward and how the process would work, she said: “We spoke to our lawyers.”

Rasilingwane said the reward remained in place. The party was also planning to offer additional rewards by engaging private investigators with proven track records.

“As indicated in the announcement, our biggest interest with this is to get to the bottom of this case. Ours is to see justice prevail for the nine women who have been killed,” she said.

Mosikili, who visited the latest crime scene, said national police structures had been brought into the investigation because of the number and nature of the cases.

“We cannot give a case of this magnitude to the province alone,” she said. “At least the national head office is here.”

Investigators were examining every lead and trying to establish whether there was a connection between the deaths.

“There have been incidents before that we managed to crack and solve,” Mosikili said.

“I am very confident, and I will say this, putting my head on the block, that the teams that we have are very able and capable of doing it.”

The Boksburg discovery was the third case involving a dead woman reported in Ekurhuleni within four days.

On Monday, a semi-naked woman with bruises on her body was found in Olifantsfontein.

On Tuesday, another woman was found beside a road in KwaThema, Springs.

Pathologists' preliminary findings indicated she had been strangled.

Her family later identified her as Dineo Evelyn Motapane, 38. Police said she was last seen alive on Sunday.

The latest case brings the number of women found dead in Ekurhuleni over nine weeks to nine.

The first victim, a 37-year-old woman, was found naked with her hands bound with cable ties in a field in Kempton Park on July 15. A suspect was arrested two days later.

Itumeleng Kekana, 32, went missing in Kempton Park on July 17. 

Her family searched hospitals, police stations and mortuaries for more than two weeks before her body was found on Great North Road in Pomona on August 3.

Kekana left behind her parents and a 14-year-old daughter.

A 32-year-old woman was found partially clothed near the R21 on August 24.

On September 7, the body of a woman believed to be in her late 20s was found in a river in Clayville, near Thembisa Mall. 

She was wearing only her underwear.

Three days later, the naked and badly decomposed body of a woman was found near the R21 in Kempton Park.

Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, 38, was found dead behind a hotel in Rhodesfield after she had gone for her usual run.

Only three of the nine women - Kekana, Moselakgomo and Motapane - have been publicly identified.

Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia said on Tuesday that it was too early to establish whether there was a pattern linking the deaths.

He announced a police lockdown of Kempton Park and surrounding areas, as police are also tracing a person of interest.