‘Others must fall too in Phiyega inquiry saga’
Parties say more heads should roll for massacre at Marikana
Parties have called for more heads to roll in the fallout over suspended police commissioner Riah Phiyega, after the board of inquiry called for her axing from the SAPS.
It was reported yesterday that the board of inquiry has recommended that Phiyega, who has been on suspension since October last year, was not fit for office.
Cope, the DA and the ACDP have called for more heads to roll after the findings of the inquiry led by Judge Neels Claassen.
Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem said Phiyega must not be the only person facing the music.
He said other leaders in the government must also go.
He said Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former police minister Nathi Mthethwa were also responsible for the events at Marikana.
The EFF has accused Ramaphosa in Parliament several times of being responsible for the Marikana shooting.
DA MP Zakhele Mbhele said the terms of reference for the inquiry should have included many of the failings of Phiyega during her four-year tenure at the SAPS.
He said Phiyega had presided over the decline of the SAPS.
Rev Kenneth Meshoe, the leader of the ACDP, said Judge Claassen had made sound findings in his report.
He said that, without having seen the report, he believed the judge was correct in his findings.
“The findings were made by an experienced and a very senior judge who has been on the bench for many years. Without seeing the report, one can fairly say I agree with the findings,” he said.
Chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on police Francois Beukman said they would not comment on the report until the judge had formally tabled it in Parliament.
However, Mbhele said he was going to write to Beukman today for the report to be tabled in Parliament urgently.
Beukman said the law required that once all processes had been finalised, a report will have to be tabled in the National Assembly.
Phiyega yesterday declined to disclose her next course of action. Her lawyer, Sandile July, said they were weighing their options, pending the release of the report.
“As counsel for suspended national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega, we wish to state that neither General Phiyega nor any member of her legal team will comment on the findings of the Claassen board of inquiry until a copy of the findings is made available to us by the board. This has not happened, either formally or informally,” said July.
He said they were still going to approach the Claassen board of inquiry on when it will make the report available to them. He said they would study the report before deciding what to do next.
Phiyega has always maintained her innocence, saying the Marikana shooting happened two months after she was appointed national commissioner.
She had succeeded Bheki Cele, who had also faced his own board of inquiry into fitness for office over the R1.5 billion police lease building saga.
Property tycoon Roux Shabangu is still in court fighting the government over the scrapping of the lease.
Beukman said they would wait for the formal tabling of the report before deciding what action was required.