Arrogance of police leadership hampers crime fighting
One of the biggest challenges facing our country is the scourge of crime. It is good news to hear that the levels of crime were reduced during the festive period and that so many were arrested in police raids.
It is, however, cold comfort to be daily bombarded with stories of infighting at the highest levels of the police service, something that reduces the chances of convictions of these arrested criminals. As we speak, the police minister is embroiled in an unending fight with the head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), baying for his blood and wanting to involve Parliament in that ugly fight. This and the Nkandla cover-up video are what the police minister is known for, rather than any big idea to reduce the horrific crime levels. So the focus on defeating crime has not received the amount of attention that matches the unacceptable crime levels. But this is not even the biggest problem. The credibility of the police has taken a knock due to all the dark clouds that hang over its leadership in the office of the commissioner of police.
Just last week the acting police commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane, had his house raided by Ipid on suspicion of corruption. From a distance it is a movie repeating itself featuring new players just replacing Jackie Selebi, the last police commissioner to consort with criminals, Bheki Cele, who mixed with corporate thieves, and Riah Phiyega, who was found wanting in the Marikana debacle. Now you have a fellow who can’t seem to understand a basic operating principle of combating corruption — avoidance of conflict of interest.
He went on a media road show where he arrogantly told the country that there is nothing wrong with him doing private business with a supplier that is doing business with the police. When someone that senior in the police cannot tell right from wrong it becomes clear what is wrong with our policing and therefore our ability to fight crime and corruption.
It would be less worrying if this lack of moral compass was an isolated incident, but sadly it is not. As we speak, the chief of staff of the police minister is a convicted fraudster who is using fake identity documents, and the minister has yet to act on this; the head of the Hawks is a blue-faced liar and has been declared so by the courts, yet the minister went ahead to confirm him in his job; the head of the prosecuting authority is on the verge of suspension by the president while he is in court trying to help the same president avoid hundreds of criminal charges.
As if that were not enough, more than 1,500 police officers remain on the payroll even after being convicted of crimes ranging from murder to rape. These are the guardians of the Constitution.
With this level of moral depravity who will guard the guardians? Ipid, you say? Only if the minister does not succeed in convincing his comrades in Parliament that they should cut off its head, Robert McBride, with whom he has an ongoing feud. And then for good measure we are subjected to the charging and countercharging of police big guns in what is really an abuse of the criminal justice system.
I don’t have time to reflect on the recent prison riots and escapes that have come to characterise the correctional services, or the rotten culture of bribery among our traffic officers that contributes to the carnage on our roads.
So when on top of all of this you have an acting commissioner of police who is so nonchalant about the rules of engagement, it is a sad day.
It is clear that citizens who wish to be safe have to take the security of their families into their own hands. The private security establishment, which in some bizarre twist some years ago was called upon to guard some police stations, has its work cut out coping with demand.
I am generally an optimist yet where policing in this country is concerned I find no glimmer of hope. Phahlane took away the last of it with his arrogance and attempts to pull the wool over the eyes of the public.