Zuma stamps his authority

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Among the changes Zuma announced to strengthen his hand were Victoria Riah Phiyega appointed as the new police commissioner.

President Jacob Zuma showed who was in charge yesterday when he reshuffled his cabinet for the third time, axed suspended top cop Bheki Cele, and appointed businesswoman Riah Phiyega as Cele’s replacement.

“I’ve decided to release General Cele from his duties,” Zuma said.

However, he also said that Cele “still has a lot to offer”.

Cele was expected to respond in a speech to the National Press Club in Pretoria today.

Zuma’s late afternoon announcement was a double-whammy that took the wind out of the sails of an opposition walkout in the National Assembly over the ejection of Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota.

Lekota was ordered from the House after he refused to withdraw his accusation – ruled unparliamentary – that Zuma had violated his oath of office to defend the constitution during the storm over The Spear painting.

Meanwhile, Zuma promoted the effective and independent-minded ANC MP who had been asking questions about the chaos within police ranks by making Sindi Chikunga a deputy minister.

In charge of the SAPS with immediate effect is Mangwashi Victoria “Riah” Phiyega, a Polokwane-born businesswoman who was a group executive at both Absa and Transnet and also on the team that restructured Portnet.

She led an inquiry into corruption in the Road Accident Fund and was on the 2010 World Cup bid committee.

Phiyega was Zuma’s choice to chair his presidential review committee on state-owned enterprises and was deputy chairwoman of the Independent Commission for Remuneration of Public Office Bearers.

Her policing experience is limited and her appointment comes on the back of calls by crime and policing experts that a career police officer, not a politician, be appointed.

A cabinet reshuffle has been on the cards since the death of Roy Padayachie, who held the key Public Service and Administration portfolio.

Zuma also had two other vacancies caused by the resignation of deputy economic development minister Enoch Godongwana, who is being investigated in connection with missing pension funds belonging to clothing workers, and the sideways shunt by Zuma last October of former Deputy Minister of Public Works, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, to the ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disability.

Padayachie’s post will be taken over by Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, possibly one of Zuma’s most effective ministers, despite criticism of her at times imperious style.

The defence portfolio goes to Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who will be giving the portfolio for prisons to Transport Minister S’bu Ndebele, who may be paying for his part in the Gauteng e-tolling debacle.

Ndebele’s deputy, SACP deputy general secretary, Jeremy Cronin and a former parliamentary transport oversight committee chairman also goes, to become deputy public works minister.

This leaves little institutional memory in the transport executive.

The SACP has come under attack for not strongly opposing e-tolling and being compromised by its leaders’ positions in government.

This may not abate, as SACP central committee member Ben Martins has been promoted to become Transport Minister. Another promotion takes ANC MP M’du Manana, ANC Youth League national executive committee member, to become deputy higher education minister.

Deputy Correctional Services Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize will be Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel’s deputy, while ANC deputy chief whip Bulelani Magwanishe has also been promoted to deputy to Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba.

Cele thanked South Africans “across both the racial and class divides for the support and assistance they lent to his efforts to turn the SA Police Service into an effective and respected crime-fighting machine”, his spokesman Vuyo Mkhize said.

“He also wishes to thank the men and women of the SAPS for their dedicated and brave response to his rallying call for them to make sure that South Africans are not only safe, but also feel safe in the land of their fathers.”

Mkhize said Cele would “provide a full response to the president’s decision” at a press conference to be hosted by the National Press Club in Pretoria today.

“Until then, he will not be commenting on any aspect of the president’s decision,” Mkhize said.

Cele had earlier said he would challenge his firing and wanted to clear his name. 8P

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