The R4m luxury home Cele made you pay for

Official residence not good enough for top cop

The government spent R4.2-million buying and furnishing a plush home for police commissioner General Bheki Cele in an exclusive Pretoria suburb of Waterkloof after he turned his nose up at the official residence he was offered.

The house cost R3-million with transfer costs, and the SAPS forked out a staggering R1.2-million for luxury furnishings, including a R500000 home gym that is under construction.

Cele's new house in Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria

The SAPS appears to have kept the costs of decorating Cele's house just below the R500000 level that would require a tender by splitting the invoices between goods and services. Lavish furnishings came to R499800, and the interior decorator was paid another R249900 for her services.

Documents show that while Cele was approving scaling back on services to poor communities in KwaZulu-Natal, his Waterkloof house was being fitted with every imaginable luxury. An approved Mirisa Interior quote includes:

• R8000 for upholstered queen chairs at the ends of an eight-seater wooden table;
  
• R12500 for a braai-area day bed;
  
• R5000 for a vase with artificial flowers;
  
• R11000 for a Mombasa King headboard and base set in the master bedroom;
  
• R27500 for three flat-screen TV sets, for the lounge and two bedrooms.
  

This extravagance is at odds with the image Cele presented in parliament last week. He told MPs he was determined to root out consultants who are "there to milk - that money is huge", and vowed to ensure his department's scarce resources were spent on fighting crime, especially in poorly serviced rural areas.

The home was bought - and paid for out of the SAPS budget - after Cele rejected a spacious house previously occupied by Asset Forfeiture Unit and Special Investigating Unit head, Willie Hofmeyr, in a secure police compound that would have cost taxpayers nothing.

This makes Cele South Africa's first police chief since the end of apartheid - and possibly the only civil servant at director-general level - for whom a new house has been bought.

Cele's predecessors, Jackie Selebi and George Fivaz, lived in privately owned homes.

Government policy does allow officials in the security forces to be provided with housing.

But a senior official in the Department of Public Service and Administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this typically meant existing official accommodation, such as on a military base or police compound. "If a DG comes to live here (in Pretoria) from another province he must buy a property on his own," the official said.

"To the best of my knowledge there are no other DGs who have had houses bought for them."

This week, Cele said his procurement staff had to take the blame if there were any irregularities in buying and equipping his house. He stressed he did not own the house, and paid "rental" in the form of housing benefit deductions totalling R8968 a month.

But this rental payment would account for roughly only R800000 of the purchase price.

Cele argued that a plush interior was needed to entertain important guests. "If the head of Interpol visits me I don't want him to find me living in a shack or a house with one pot," he said.

Cele's legal adviser, Lieutenant-General Julius Molefe, said the free house previously occupied by Hofmeyr, which is inside a guarded police compound occupied by its elite unit, the Hawks, was not deemed suitable because of "serious security concerns".

It was also unfair to compare Cele with other top government officials. "He's not the DG of water affairs," said Molefe.

Cele also came under fire this week for approving a 10-year lease for more than R500-million at inflated rentals without going out tender to house the new police headquarters in a building owned by a friend of President Jacob Zuma's, Roux Shabangu. The deal forms part of an SIU investigation also covering two leases signed before Cele was appointed.

Today the Sunday Times can reveal the details of how Cele allegedly tried to strong-arm his generals into approving the Shabangu deals worth R1-billion. (see full story here) We were forced out because we questioned deals - generals - Times LIVE