Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Top officers under fire for backing embattled Phiyega
THE jobs of the police top management are on the line after they earned the wrath of Parliament’s police oversight committee by defying an instruction to withdraw a statement made in support of embattled national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega.
The committee is to meet Police Minister Nathi Nhleko next week to discuss the need for leadership change in the police after a grilling yesterday of Phiyega’s spokesman LieutenantGeneral Solomon Makgale revealed what MPs characterised as serious lapses in corporate governance.
On August 1, the board of provincial police commissioners issued a statement expressing its unequivocal support for Phiyega. This was the morning after Phiyega submitted her response to President Jacob Zuma relating to the recommendation of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry that her fitness for office be investigated.
The police committee saw provincial police commissioners’ statement as an attempt to influence the process and instructed the commissioners to apologise and retract the statement.
However, though they apologised in person at the meeting of the committee that day, Makgale issued another statement on their behalf on August 13, which said they wished to “correct the misconceptions” created by the initial statement.
The August 13 statement said it had been the parliamentary committee’s “view” that the earlier statement had had “unintended consequences” in that it “created the impression” that the commissioners were preempting the inquiry into Phiyega’s fitness for office.
The statement expressed the “regret” of the commissioners for these unintended consequences but did not apologise or retract the earlier statement.
Yesterday, MPs demanded that Makgale explain who had authorised him to speak on behalf of the committee, and rejected the interpretation of their position in his statement. Makgale fielded questions for more than two hours as to how the second statement had come about, who had drafted and authorised it and whether Phiyega herself had initiated it.
He explained that the commissioners had met after the meeting with the parliamentary committee on August 12 to discuss what their response should be and, after inputs from all of them, including Phiyega, a statement had been prepared which he forwarded to them individually for their approval.
With the exception of Free State provincial commissioner Simon Mpembe, who initially agreed with the statement and later SMSed to say he had some concerns, all the provincial commissioners as well as divisional commissioners Khehla Sithole and Nobubele Mbekela, had agreed to the statement in writing, Makgale said.
But when he was asked whether Phiyega had chaired the meeting where the statement was discussed, he said it had not been a formal meeting and he had not seen anyone taking minutes, prompting incredulous responses from MPs.
Chairman of the committee Francois Beukman said it raised concerns about corporate governance if Makgale was suggesting he had issued a statement on behalf of the board of commissioners – an official structure of the police – without anyone having chaired the meeting where it was discussed.
“We need to know, is this a real statement or not?” ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane said.
Beukman said the details provided by Makgale had raised “serious questions about corporate governance, but also maybe people we have in certain positions”.