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Private investigator Paul O’Sullivan’s appearance before Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee.
Paul O’Sullivan‘s qualifications have come under scrutiny at Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating criminality in the country’s criminal justice system.
O’Sullivan had spent the bulk of his testimony in parliament, relating his role in exposing corruption and helping in crime prevention activities as a police reservist.
Members of Parliament asked him to clarify what his formal qualifications were.
In an exchange with ActionSA’s MP Dereleen James, O’Sullivan conceded that he possesses no formal qualification.
James: Just to make 100% certain, you have no other qualifications, nothing. You don’t have any law qualifications, engineering, nothing?
O’Sullivan: No, completely unqualified.
James: Completely. Nothing in law, nothing in engineering?
O’Sullivan: That’s correct.
James: Do you have a matric?
O’Sullivan: We don’t have matric where I went to school. That’s a South African qualification.
James: Anything equivalent to matric?
O’Sullivan: Of course I have.
James: What is that?
O’Sullivan: We call it O levels and A levels, but I mean we’re talking about 40 years ago, so or 50- year ago. You were group executive, no qualifications? Of course I had qualifications.
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Meanwhile, O’Sullivan says he was motivated to investigate the late Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, because he believed the country deserved a crime free police chief.
He has told MPs that he received permanent residency in South Africa in 1989. A year later he became a police reservist.
He says he pursued several training courses involving police and forensic examinations. While he was working as head of security at the Airport Company of South Africa, he says he discovered what he considered a corrupt relationship between Selebi and his friend, the late Glenn Agliotti, who was an alleged mafia kingpin.
O’Sullivan says he started an investigation that triggered evidence to pursue Selebi.
“I wanted to live in country with rule of law, not one where police chief could be so corrupt that can help a sitting president to charge a future president. I felt it was completely wrong,” he says.
Paul O’Sullivan appears before Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee | 10 February 2026
