The DA said on Sunday it would continue to fight for the ongoing saga involving crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli to be put under parliament’s spotlight.
The spokeswoman on policing, Dianne Kohler Barnard, said hearings were even more necessary following reports of his alleged abuse of a second secret slush fund and claims that he had pledged his support for President Jacob Zuma.
Some cabinet ministers, speaking on condition of anonymity, were reported in The Sunday Independent as describing “an atmosphere of fear” and not being able to trust their own bodyguards.
Mdluli – who told the Sunday Times he was simply “a policeman serving the government of the day” – recently took charge of the Presidential Protection Unit as well as VIP Protection, giving him a commanding view of the movement and meetings of members of Zuma’s executive.
In a two-line comment last week, the cabinet urged what it called “the spat” between senior policemen to end. Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane insisted the drama had not been discussed by the cabinet, but said the matter had been referred to the security cluster of ministers.
Kohler Barnard did not accept what she said was a “unilateral” decision by the chairwoman of the National Assembly’s police oversight committee, ANC MP Sindi Chikunga, to decline to consider the matter. Chikunga had said that as the committee was not a court of law, she could not do anything. The DA maintained it was not within the powers of the chairperson to unilaterally make such a ruling, Kohler Barnard said.