Overview
- Retired lieutenant colonel Jakobus Prinsloo told the commission that superiors ignored repeated pleas to strengthen security at the Port Shepstone Hawks offices where 541 kg of cocaine later disappeared.
- He described basic gaps at the site, including no CCTV or alarm, a shared door code for entry, and an electric fence that failed during power cuts, which left the building easy to breach.
- Prinsloo said the consignment arrived unsealed and was not entered in the SAP‑13 evidence register or counted, with officers passing bricks by hand into storage, which he called a major risk.
- Major-General Hendrik Flynn earlier outlined further breaches, including late register entries, the provincial head Lesetja Senona taking control of the vault keys and handing them to an unauthorised warrant officer, and the failure to send the drugs to the Forensic Science Laboratory.
- The commission plans to subpoena Senona to return on 1 June as it weighs accountability for broken safeguards that have weakened trafficking cases and public trust.