Another top cop in tangle
In the golden oldie Eddie Murphy movie, Another 48 hrs, a policeman played by Nick Nolte declares to a fellow cop before he proceeds to kill him: “There is nothing worse than a bad cop”. The bad cop in this case was on the take, accepting money from criminals to aid them in avoiding detection as they went about their criminal activities.
My mind can’t help but turn, rightly or wrongly, to acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane. Our number one cop has been on the defensive lately. Not against criminals mind you, but against citizens who want to know if he indeed is a bad cop.
He finds himself in a tangle to explain how he could procure a music system worth R80 000 from a company that provides chemicals to the police’s forensic services division.
He’s hardly the first top cop to find himself in an awkward position. In fact, you need to go back to Nelson Mandela’s era to find a number one cop who wasn’t clouded by controversy.
Jackie Selebi was given a jail term for corruption that included being in the pocket of alleged Mafia don Glenn Agliotti. Bheki Cele was unceremoniously removed from his post after the public protector slammed him for the sale and acquisition of new multimillion-rand buildings for police headquarters in the capital.
The less said about Riah Phiyega the better. She was part of a police management that took South African policing back to the days of the Sharpeville and Langa massacres.
And then enter Johannes Khomotso Phahlane. You would think that his having been given the position in an acting capacity would have encouraged him to become the first top cop in almost two decades to steer away from controversy.
Of course, we don’t know the final outcome yet, but why did he have to go and buy a music system from a company that provides chemicals to a police unit he was the head of? This company was then alleged to have won tenders to provide further services to the police. The success of our criminal justice system is dependent on two arms of government that have to work seamlessly to ensure criminals are brought to book: the police and the prosecuting authority.
A police officer who accepts favours that might see them turning a blind eye to criminal activity is serious, even if R80 000 sounds like a drop in the ocean compared with the billions in corruption we’ve become used to reading about.
Between Selebi and Agliotti, things also started small. One envelope stuffed with cash turned into many more.
There is probably a case in the South African situation for doing away with the top cop position considering that it has become a hindrance to police activity rather than an aid in dealing with crime. Perhaps it’s just too easy for criminals to target the top leader and attempt to corrupt him or her.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate has found itself inundated with work policing our top cops when it should be protecting the public from more run-of-the-mill police officers who abuse their power.
A strong case can be made for an overhaul of police management. We must ensure that those in charge of the police are beyond reproach.