Phiyega’s time to say bye?

William Saunderson-Meyer

Jaundiced Eye

It’s almost three years since the South African Police Service shot dead 34 striking miners and wounded 78 others at Marikana. It’s now a full month since President Jacob Zuma was handed the findings of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into those deaths.

The report, however, still sits in Zuma’s heaped in-tray. Although Zuma is infamous for his dilatory executive style, this particular delay can only be deliberate. Since day one, the government has tried to contain the Marikana disaster by heel-dragging and obfuscation. It has worked.

Although the media has remained relentlessly critical, initial outrage appears to have died down. In last year’s general election, the ANC vote on the platinum belt was barely dented by Marikana.

Importantly, the delays also enabled Zuma to keep the incompetent, but pliant, Riah Phiyega in the post of national commissioner of police. Phiyega is important to Zuma, since the police commissioner’s job is critical to Zuma’s raison d’être as president — keeping his back and the backs of his key allies covered.

Until now, Zuma has protected Phiyega, despite her obvious incompetence. However, her lack of ability and her cavalier attitude to the law eventually became too much to ignore.

Last year, Police Minister Nathi Nhleko set up a committee to investigate claims of incompetence and irregular conduct. The Sunday Independent last week cited unnamed sources saying the as yet unreleased report concluded while the evidence did not suffice to charge Phiyega in court, she should face a disciplinary inquiry, where the burden of proof would be less onerous.

The Farlam Report will likely be even more damning. Phiyega’s performance before the commission was disastrous. She was evasive, dismissive and unconvincing.

A key aspect to the findings is likely to be a meeting of senior SAPS officers held by Phiyega on the day before the massacre. Whether she and her commanders adequately assessed the risk of bloodshed is important to assessing police culpability and managerial competence.

Amazingly, when questioned before the commission, the officers concerned were affl icted by collective amnesia. The best Phiyega could come up with was the chilling response: “I’m not able to give that kind of pedantic detail.”

In any other democracy, Phiyega would have fallen on her sword way back in 2012. But even in a Zuma administration where the concept of executive responsibility is unknown, it is inconceivable Phiyega can survive a Farlam Report that is harshly critical of her role in Marikana.

But as is appropriate in an administration whose leader is a fundamentalist Christian, the lower you fall, the higher you will be exalted. So when Phiyega does get the boot, she should not be disheartened.

Her predecessor, Bheki Cele, was fired by Zuma after an investigative board found him unfit for office, among allegations of corruption and dishonesty. He is now a deputy minister.

Cele’s predecessor in turn, Jackie Selebi, faced 15 years in jail for corruption, though he was soon released on humanitarian grounds. When Selebi died this year, he was immediately rehabilitated as a hero, with talk of his convictions being expunged.

What ANC glories might yet await a disgraced Phiyega?