Johannesburg - Oh sorry, the minister forgot to tell you.
It’s taken a year for Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko to remember that he was supposed to formally tell Parliament that he’d appointed the controversial Lieutenant General Berning Mthandazo Ntlemeza as head of the Hawks in September last year.
The Hawks are more formally known as the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation and Ntlemeza has in recent months had a well-publicised spat with Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan over whether and how the Hawks can question the minister.
Nhleko wrote to the Speaker of Parliament a week ago and details of this has now been confirmed in parliamentary papers.
“A letter dated 14 September 2016 has been received from the Minister of Police, informing members of the Assembly that he had appointed Lt Gen B M Ntlemeza as national head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation with effect from 10 September 2015 in terms of section 17CA(1) of the South African Police Service Act, 1995 (Act No 68 of 1995) and requesting Parliament’s condonation of his late notification of this appointment as required by section 17CA(3) of the Act,” said a note from the Speaker’s office in the daily parliamentary papers.
The Ministry of Police said on Wednesday that it had just been overlooked.
“It was an oversight. The appointment was approved by Cabinet,” said Leon Mbangwa, the Chief of Staff in the Ministry of Police.
“It’s been corrected now.”
Mbangwa said the note just had to be tabled as Parliament had merely to be notified of the appointment and was not required to approve it.
The oversight has now led to the DA questioning the legality of Ntelemeza’s appointment.
DA MP Zakhele Mbhele said the SAPS Act required that the minister report the appointment to Parliament within 14 days but Nhleko had “blatantly ignored” this.
“Nhleko's request for Parliament to condone his failure to do so is an admission that the process was procedurally flawed. If Parliament fails to condone his actions, this could serve as grounds for Ntlemeza’s appointment to be set aside,” said Mbhele.
He said the DA had sent a parliamentary question to the minister’s office earlier this month asking if he’d complied with this legal requirement, and this probably triggered the minister’s letter to Parliament.
“It was previously reported that Ntlemeza was not on the original shortlist of candidates, that the selection panel deemed it unnecessary to subject him to a competency assessment and that it was recommended he receive an unusually generous R1.6 million a year salary,” said Mbhele.
The Star