Durban - The DA has called on President Jacob Zuma to probe the “taxpayer funded witch-hunt” against the head of the KZN Hawks, Major-General Johan Booysen.
MP Dianne Kohler Barnard, the party’s spokeswoman on police, wants Zuma to expand the terms of reference of the ministerial probe into the conduct of the national police commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, to include the “witch-hunt” against Booysen, which she says is driven by Phiyega.
Zuma ordered the ministerial commission to look into allegations of misconduct against Phiyega, which included tipping off the Western Cape police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer, about a probe into his alleged links with suspected criminals.
It is also claimed that she allegedly misled the public when she claimed she was unaware that Lieutenant-General Mondli Zuma, whom she had appointed as Gauteng police commissioner, was facing criminal charges.
Kohler Barnard said on Sunday that advocate Nazeem Cassim, SC, hired by the commissioner to conduct the internal police disciplinary against the then suspended Booysen, had cleared him of all accusations, “and insisted he be allowed back to work”.
Cassim found Booysen had been a victim of a concerted campaign to get rid of him.
Kohler Barnard said Booysen had previously been cleared of allegations in the Labour Court twice and once in the High Court.
Exonerated by Cassim, Booysen returned to work last week. But the top brass then decided to appeal the internal findings at the Johannesburg Labour Court and Booysen was put on special leave.
“She (Phiyega) is once again wasting taxpayers’ money taking this (the findings of the internal disciplinary inquiry) on review and putting him on special leave,” the DA MP said.
Booysen’s attorney, Carl van der Merwe, has indicated that Booysen will oppose the review.
Kohler Barnard said internal inquiry hearings “cost a fortune… millions” and felt that if it was indeed taken on review, the costs should come out of the national police commissioner’s own pocket.
The DA has welcomed the probe into the conduct of the commissioner, who Kohler Barnard said had “stumbled from crisis to crisis”. The time had come to “seriously consider discharging” her.
“There has not been a career police officer in the position of national police commissioner since 2000 and the effects of political appointments have been devastating. We now have an under-resourced, under-trained and increasingly brutal police service.”
At the outset of Phiyega’s tenure in June 2012, the DA had sent her a to-do list of the top priorities the party thought she needed to target. She had failed to make any discernible difference to any one of them, Kohler Barnard said.
The list included a call for every police station to be provided with water, sanitation facilities and electricity; as well as the re-introduction and strengthening of specialised police units.
Also on the list was the introduction of mandatory specialised training and fitness requirements to ensure the police were fighting fit and skilled in combating violent crime. Most police officers failed the current assessment test.
The DA also wanted the ministerial commission to look into how the crime statistics release had been “bungled” twice in the two years under Phiyega.
“This year, the wrong stats were used for both KZN and Limpopo, with nonsensical data being reported, handed out and put up on the SAPS website,” Kohler Barnard said.
It should also look at why there were 39 000 officers without firearm competency certificates, among other issues.
Daily News