Parliament probe lays bare SAPS leadership crisis

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DUDUZILE RAMELA: Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating law enforcement infiltration has presented a draft report on its work. The committee was instituted in October last year.

You’ll remember that [was] after explosive allegations by the KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, about the state of rot in the police service.

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In presenting the report, evidence leader Advocate Norman Arendse shared a number of assessments made after interviewing a number of witnesses.

We look at these with Chad Thomas, CEO of IRS Forensic Investigations. Chad, thank you for your time this afternoon. So 28 witnesses later, here we sit, while this committee has concluded its work, the Madlanga Commission is back today to pick up its work. Your overall take on the ad hoc committee report.

CHAD THOMAS: Very good afternoon to you and to the listeners. Yeah, what we’ve seen come out of ad hoc and what we’ve seen come out of Madlanga has confirmed, validated, given credence to the fact that every South African was walking around with the knowledge that there was a problem in our policing in South Africa.

We couldn’t understand how we could be ranked as one of the most violent societies in the world, alongside countries like Haiti that hasn’t had a functioning administration for years, and Afghanistan, which has been at war for decades. Now we know why.

There was this deficit of leadership within SAPS (South African Police Service). There was this vying for control, this empire building, so that there could be access to the Secret Service slush fund.

All of this has impacted everyday citizenry in South Africa and that’s why when one looks at Madlanga, we’ve seen a lot more attention focused on it than we saw on the Zondo [Commission], because crime has impacted every single one of us.

With the parliamentary ad hoc committee, the way in which they went about it, they brought parliament to the people.

The people could finally see their duly elected representatives working for them, trying to get to the bottom of what has become a very torrid saga in respect to the capture of our policing in South Africa.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: The report has questioned the former police minister (Senzo Mchunu) who’s on suspension or is he expelled? We don’t know yet.

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His reasons for the disbandment to date, he sits comfortably wherever he is — maybe comfortably is too comfortable a word, if you will – but what should we make of this? That we are seeing the prosecution of some, and not necessarily the one at the top who disbanded this PKTT (Political Killings Task Team)?

CHAD THOMAS: It will be very interesting to find out what comes out of the regular NEC (National Executive Committee) and NWC (National Working Committee) meetings that take place on a Monday at Luthuli House.

We know that Bheki Cele is up for discussion, and we know that Senzo Mchunu is up for discussion.

Both of them share something in common, they are both very strong in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), and the ANC (African National Congress) has lost tremendously, especially since the arrival of MKP (uMkhonto weSizwe Party).

That could be one of the reasons why we saw Senzo Mchunu kept in office and why we saw somebody like Bheki Cele go unpunished, as such. Senzo Mchunu should never have been kept in office.

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I can’t stand the fact that Firoz Cachalia is referred to as the acting Minister of Police. He’s not the acting minister of police, he is the minister of police.

The minister without portfolio, sitting at home, is Senzo Mchunu and he’s getting paid to sit at home to do absolutely nothing. He should have been fired a very long time ago, when you had two deputy ministers.

Remember, the police portfolio is so important that they had two deputy ministers and both deputy ministers have spoken out and said that during their tenure under Senzo Mchunu, he gave them no direction, no instruction, and they basically did nothing for a year while he was at the helm. He was the apex head of their department.

Now, that in itself says to you if you have two deputy ministers that haven’t been deployed to do their work, surely that should have been enough to have got rid of Mchunu.

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Then he goes and disbands the PKTT, and he stops the all-important appointments from taking place within crime intelligence without consulting his commissioner, without consulting his apex head, the president [Cyril Ramaphosa], without consulting both of his deputies.

Why have we kept him on? Is it because of this cheap politicking? Because we need KZN?

I don’t know, but there’s now enough grounds for the president to be decisive and to get rid of this man who clearly, although he was somebody that I admired and I thought was the right person for the job, clearly was not the right person for the job.

He said the right things. He started doing the right things by having the first anti-crime dialogue. But clearly, he was out of his depth by not taking advice from his commissioner, nor from his two deputies.

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DUDUZILE RAMELA: What then is the way forward? More so when the report talks of the politicisation of appointments within the police ministry. Because the ultimate losers are you and I.

CHAD THOMAS: You’re 100% right.

The citizen of this land suffers. It goes back to Thabo Mbeki in 2000, it was his appointment in the form of Jackie Selebi, who was the first non-police officer to take the helm of the police.

We know how that ended up. He ended up in prison because of his relationship with Glenn Agliotti.

We then had another political appointment as commissioner, Bheki Cele. We saw how that ended up. He was actually dismissed by [Jacob] Zuma for corruption in respect to the Roux Shabangu debacle, with the rental of the Sanlam Middestad building for R500 million a year.

Then we had Riah Phiyega appointed and Marikana was on her watch.

But it’s not just these politicians who were parachuted into these senior positions within the police. We’ve also got senior police officers themselves who have worked the system to their own advantages.

We’ve got Joey Mabaso and Richard Mdluli from Crime Intelligence who benefited. We’ve got [Khomotso] Phahlane who is still under investigation. We’ve got [Shadrack] Sibiya, we’ve got [Richard] Shibiri, we’ve got [Lesetja] Senona.

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It seems to have just become such a mess over the past 26 years that people are more interested in their own career building, their own empire building and their own control of their factions than actually doing what was constitutionally mandated, and that’s to protect the citizens of our country.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: On that point, you speak to everyday South Africans, and I heard something the other day that was rather quite disturbing. Somebody said, if you call the police because you are in need, they will not come. But if you say you’ve got money, they will come.

Just take a look at what’s happening at the Madlanga Commission, for instance. So this has captured the imagination of everyday people on the ground. What does that say about the men and the women in blue?

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While we also have to recognise that there are those who will lay their lives on the line to do the right thing, where this is a calling for them, do we need to give them their flowers, and what is the message to South Africans when you come across a police officer where you’re like, I don’t know if I can trust this or not.

CHAD THOMAS: There are two points I want to make. The first is I started by saying we are in the same violent crime category as countries like Haiti and Afghanistan. Both are failed states.

South Africa is not a failed state.

We’ve come through a national election and we’re now going into a local election. We have a fiercely independent media, and we’ve got our Chapter 9 [institutions] that ensure that our Constitution is respected.

We do have problems, unemployment being the biggest, and then of course, crime.

Yet we haven’t reached failed state status despite the levels of crime, despite the levels of unemployment, which means as a people, we are very resolute and we’ve got so much going for us as a country.

That means that the entire police force has not been captured.

There are still good cops out there but spare a thought for them – can you imagine being a low-ranking police officer and seeing these generals driving Porsches, living la vida loca?

It’s a terrible situation. The second point I want to make is you spoke about moneyed individuals. If you live in suburbia, you can outsource the policing function to private security companies.

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The people who are suffering the most are in decaying CBDs, informal settlements and townships because they can’t afford private policing.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: Yeah, unfortunately. Chad, thank you very much for your time this afternoon. Chad Thomas is CEO of IRS Forensic Investigations

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