Zuma still to set date for critical talks on Phiyega
The Presidency is yet to set up a meeting with the board that looked into suspended police commissioner Riah Phiyega’s fitness to hold office, despite it concluding its work in November.
On Sunday, City Press newspaper reported that the Claassen board of inquiry had found Phiyega was not fit to hold office following her role in the Marikana massacre in 2012 that saw 34 mine workers gunned down by police officers.
Phiyega’s attorney Sandile July said he could not comment because her legal team had not seen the board’s report or an official document on Phiyega’s fitness to hold office.
“We … don’t know what City Press is talking about, so we can’t comment,” said July.
President Jacob Zuma established the Claassen board in 2015, following recommendations by Judge Ian Farlam in the Marikana report.
Farlam’s report, which followed a judicial inquiry into the massacre, implicated Phiyega and other senior police officers in the workers’ deaths.
Zuma suspended Phiyega in 2015, pending the outcome of the board’s hearings.
In November, retired Judge Neels Claassen said the board had completed the report, and would table it at a meeting with the president, who had to indicate his availability to receive it. Claassen chaired the board’s hearings that ended in June.
The report would be handed to Zuma “on a date determined by the president”, said Claassen.
Presidency spokesman Bongani Ngqulunga said on Sunday Zuma had not yet received the report and he was not sure when the president would receive it.
If the inquiry recommended her dismissal, Phiyega would be the third police commissioner to fall foul of the law. Zuma fired
her predecessor, Bheki Cele, in 2012 after gross misconduct on his part was found in a legal inquiry. Before him Jackie Selebi’s tenure ended after his criminal conviction over his corrupt relationship with druglord Glenn Agliotti.
Other police agencies are also going through high-stakes instability. Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) boss Robert McBride will find out this week if Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s bid to have an inquiry into him instituted by Parliament will be approved.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on police is expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss Nhleko’s request.
The move, if allowed by the National Assembly, could pave the way for Nhleko to suspend McBride just more than a month after returning to the helm at Ipid from a lengthy suspension.
Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza is facing a court challenge to his leadership of the investigations unit while prosecutions head Shaun Abrahams and two of his deputies at the National Prosecuting Authority are facing suspension by the president.