Cape Town - New Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko should fire national commissioner Riah Phiyega and replace her with someone with policing experience, the DA said on Wednesday.
“By firing Phiyega, the new police minister can show that he is committed to improving the state of our police service, that has been in rapid decline over the last five years,” Democratic Alliance MP Diane Kohler-Barnard said in a statement.
Her party would push for Nhleko to remove the national police commissioner at the earliest sitting of Parliament's police portfolio committee, she said.
Phiyega’s appointment had been disastrous from the onset.
“Throughout the Marikana crisis she showed her lack of knowledge of policing and failed to acknowledge the police’s responsibility in the death of 44 people, going as far as to say that they did not kill them.”
Kohler-Barnard said no progress had been made in addressing police brutality, and Phiyega had failed to rectify the police's resources crisis.
Further, no decisive action had been taken against SA Police Service members found to have criminal records.
“Commissioner Phiyega was hired because of her much-praised managerial skills and on that basis she should be fired for her clear lack thereof.
“It is obvious that she lacks the managerial skills and political will to reform South Africa’s police service.”
Nhleko should get rid of Phiyega, and in her place “hire someone who is fit for purpose, with actual policing experience”.
Sapa