‘I didn’t leak information’ — DA’s Kohler Barnard on Crime Intelligence building-splurge controversy

DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard has distanced herself from accusations that she leaked sensitive information about the country’s controversial Crime Intelligence unit, which has a slush fund mired by suspicions of looting.

She testified at length about this before Parliament’s ad hoc committee on Thursday, 5 February 2026.

The committee is investigating accusations that a drug cartel has infiltrated the criminal justice system, politics and private security.

KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi made the allegations in July 2025.

Mkhwanazi also subsequently alleged that Kohler Barnard had been reckless with Crime Intelligence information, even suggesting that she broke the law and should be jailed.

During Thursday’s ad hoc committee proceedings, Kohler Barnard insisted she had not leaked or been negligent with information and countered that she acted so as not to “be part of a cover-up”.

She testified that when Mkhwanazi made the cartel infiltration allegations last year, he came across as a “very frustrated” and let-down policeman.

However, Kohler Barnard was not entirely sure of his motives.

Turned tables

She has been a DA MP since 2004 and part of Parliament’s police committee since 2006, with some interruptions between 2015 and 2017.

In 2015, Kohler Barnard was demoted as the DA’s shadow police minister over an inappropriate social media issue – she had shared a post that basically praised apartheid leader PW Botha.

Kohler Barnard has been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) since it was constituted at the start of April 2025.

She is also one of the DA’s alternate representatives in the ad hoc committee, meaning she stands in when a permanent member is absent.

The tables turned in the committee on Thursday, though, when Kohler Barnard was called as a witness.

A large part of the proceedings focused on the secret Crime Intelligence slush fund.

Slush fund takes centre stage

For years, there have been repeated accusations of the fund being looted.

Richard Mdluli, a former head of the Crime Intelligence unit, is facing charges in relation to this; he has pleaded not guilty.

There are now some suggestions that the Mkhwanazi-sparked law enforcement scandal may actually be about the Crime Intelligence slush fund.

Last year, Crime Intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo was arrested along with six colleagues over allegations of an irregular appointment.

They denied wrongdoing, and there have been some suggestions that Khumalo was set up to derail critical investigations.

At the same time, there have been reports of strange multimillion-rand Crime Intelligence purchases.

Kohler Barnard on Thursday testified that “year after year” she and other MPs had referenced corruption and “the misuse of hidden funds”.

She added: “Much of what has been revealed has been going on for years… and a blind eye is turned.”

Kohler Barnard said there were scores of honest police officers, but there was also “a core element that is just there to loot”.

She said the Crime Intelligence slush fund posed a constant problem, and intelligence oversight heads, when they zoomed in on it, faced resistance.

‘Inordinate forces’

“The forces against them are inordinate,” Kohler Barnard said.

She referenced the now-suspended Inspector-General of Intelligence, Imtiaz Fazel, and his predecessor, Setlhomamaru Dintwe.

In October last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended Fazel pending a JSCI investigation.

News24 recently published an article saying that a report by Fazel detailed how Crime Intelligence officers “violated procurement laws, rode roughshod over regulations on public spending, and broke with established practices in covert policing to buy five properties in 2023 and 2024”.

Read more: Intelligence chief Imtiaz Fazel’s sudden suspension — between the brown stuff and the fan

Fazel’s report is with the JSCI and has not been publicly released.

Meanwhile, Dintwe previously alleged that the country’s intelligence structures were interfering with his work.

Property purchases

During Thursday’s ad hoc committee proceedings, a News24 article from January last year was referenced.

It was headlined “Five-star flop: Crime Intelligence bosses splurge R22.7-million for luxury hotel amid budget cuts”.

The article stated: “The police’s Crime Intelligence (CI) division has splurged R22.7-million of its secret funds to purchase a 24-bedroom luxury boutique hotel in Pretoria North – while some officers are holding meetings in fast-food restaurants and using their cars as offices.”

On 14 January 2025, the day after the article was published, Kohler Barnard released a press statement saying she had asked the Inspector-General of Intelligence to investigate the hotel purchase.

Her press statement had said that Department of Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson “told the DA that he was not informed of the purchase, nor did his department receive a request for property allocations from Crime Intelligence in this regard”.

According to a statement that Kohler Barnard submitted to the ad hoc committee, she had issued another statement the following month, on 17 February 2025, about a property that Crime Intelligence purchased in Berea, Durban, based on information from a whistleblower.

Part of that statement said: “This purchase, approved by high-ranking officials within Crime Intelligence, raises serious concerns due to the vast amount of taxpayers’ money involved.”

In March last year, Kohler Barnard asked the Minister of Police about the Durban property, describing it as located in Berea and including its asking price.

She also asked the minister, in a separate question that month, about the Pretoria property.

All this happened before the JSCI was constituted in April last year.

‘I did not leak information’

During Thursday’s ad hoc committee proceedings, MPs grilled Kohler Barnard on where exactly she had gotten information on the Crime Intelligence property purchases.

She said she first read about the Pretoria hotel purchase in the News24 article and, responding to a question, said she did not know the journalist who wrote it.

The questions to her implied there were suspicions that Kohler Barnard leaked the information to News24.

She insisted: “I did not leak anything out of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.”

MPs questioned her about whether she believed everything she read in the media and why she had reacted to the News24 report by issuing a press release, instead of officially through the JSCI.

Read more: Jail ‘captured journalists’ and ‘negligent MPs with leaked intelligence’ – Mkhwanazi

This was when Kohler Barnard said she had not wanted to be part of a “cover-up”.

She said the Crime Intelligence hotel purchase saga was reminiscent of what had happened under Mdluli.

Mkhwanazi’s ‘threatening outburst’

Her testimony on Thursday was largely in response to the accusations that Mkhwanazi had previously made against her.

He had testified before the parliamentary ad hoc committee, as well as the parallel Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, about Kohler Barnard and National Coloured Congress leader Fadiel Adams.

Mkhwanazi alleged to the ad hoc committee that they had dealt with leaked sensitive information.

He had also testified: “They should go to [Cape Town’s] Pollsmoor [prison] and sit there for a while so that they can learn something.”

During the Madlanga proceedings, Mkhwanazi alleged that Kohler Barnard appeared to have obtained information about Crime Intelligence that should not have been disseminated.

Mkhwanazi had therefore accused her of breaking the law.

He had also alleged to the Madlanga Commission that Adams had “unauthorised access to intelligence information” and used it recklessly.

At the time, Kohler Barnard said Mkhwanazi’s accusations were “absurd”, while Adams had told eNCA he did not understand why Mkhwanazi was “fixated on him”.

During Thursday’s ad hoc committee proceedings, Kohler Barnard said Mkhwanazi seemed to be under the mistaken impression that she had released classified information.

She described Mkhwanazi’s previous assertions as “a very threatening outburst”.

Kohler Barnard added: “I think he was acting out of anger.”

Parliament’s ad hoc committee is expected to resume next week. DM