ANC may find political solution for Cele problem
THE turmoil within the South African Police Service (SAPS) is showing no signs of abating, with news over the weekend that crime intelligence head Lt-gen Richard Mdluli had been suspended for a second time, and that suspended national police commissioner Bheki Cele could get a job in the Kwazulu-natal structures of the African National Congress (ANC).
This despite what appears to be a clear finding that Mr Cele acted improperly in managing lease agreements worth R1,7bn for police offices in Pretoria and Durban.
The decision to re-suspend LtGen Mdluli seems to have been taken by acting national police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. When Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced Lt-gen Mdluli’s removal from the crime intelligence arm of the police, there was an outcry over the fact that he was not suspended. Mr Mthethwa had previously claimed he did not have the power to get involved in an “operational matter”. Now Lt-gen Mkhwanazi may have used that against him, by taking this action knowing there is not much Mr Mthethwa can do legally.
Institute for Security Studies crime and justice expert Dr Johan Burger points out: “We don’t know what exactly happened. But perhaps the political pressure on the minister began to show, and he and the president decided Mr Mdluli just wasn’t worth it.”
He also points out that it is publicly known that Lt-gen Mkhwanazi was unhappy with having to reinstate Lt-gen Mdluli. In that context, his latest action “was highly impressive and courageous”.
But it may mean the end of LtGen Mkhwanazi’s tenure. The power to appoint national police commissioners rests with the president. And it is President Jacob Zuma who has been accused of protecting Lt-gen Mdluli, supposedly so he could use his police powers to tap phone calls. Mr Zuma may feel the apparently independently minded Lt-gen Mkhwanazi is not the right person for this job, and could point to his relative youth and inexperience (LtGen Mkhwanazi was appointed despite there being about 40 more senior officers in the service) as reasons for his removal.
The report into Mr Cele’s conduct is now with Mr Zuma. According to details that have emerged, it recommends that he be fired. It seems almost impossible now that Mr Zuma will find a way to keep Mr Cele in his job, hence reports that ANC structures might now be looking to find Mr Cele another job.
Mr Zuma knows that in the runup to the ANC’S Mangaung conference, the rock-solid support the province of Kwazulu-natal gives him is his major weapon.
It is the ANC’S biggest province, and will provide about a quarter of the delegates to the national conference. Mr Cele is popular there, and anything less than wholehearted support in Kwazulu-natal for Mr Zuma will make it harder for him to convince other provinces he should retain his position.
Yet, should Mr Cele be rehabilitated, it means that someone who may have been found by a panel headed by a judge to have engaged in irregular conduct is being allowed back into frontline politics. For Democratic Alliance spokeswoman Dianne Kohler Barnard, what is really needed is a full-scale investigation into what exactly happened on Mr Cele’s watch. This would include investigations into the Mdluli affair. For whoever Mr Zuma now decides to appoint to the police commissioner’s job, that would be a demand fraught with difficulty.