Johannesburg - The jobs of the police top management are on the line after they earned the wrath of Parliament’s police oversight committee by defying an instruction to withdraw a statement they made in support of embattled National Commissioner Riah Phiyega.
The committee is to meet Police Minister Nathi Nhleko next week to discuss the need for leadership change in the SAPS after a grilling on Friday of Phiyega’s spokesperson, Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale, revealed what MPs characterised as serious lapses in corporate governance.
This follows a statement issued on August 1, the morning after Phiyega submitted her response to President Jacob Zuma relating to the recommendation made by the Marikana Commission of Inquiry that her fitness for office be investigated, in which the board of provincial police commissioners expressed their unequivocal support for her.
The police committee saw this as a bid to influence the process and instructed the commissioners to apologise and retract the statement.
Although they apologised in person at the meeting of the committee that day, Makgale issued another statement on their behalf the next day (August 13), which said they wished to “correct the misconceptions” created by the initial statement.
The August 13 statement said it was the parliamentary committee’s “view” that the earlier statement had had “unintended consequences” in that it “created the impression” that the commissioners were pre-empting the inquiry into Phiyega’s fitness for office.
The statement expressed the “regret” of the commissioners for these unintended consequences but did not apologise or retract the earlier statement.
On Friday, parliamentarians demanded that Makgale explain who had authorised him to speak on behalf of the committee and rejected the interpretation of their position in his statement.
Makgale fielded questions for more than two hours as to how the second statement had come about, who had drafted and authorised it and whether Phiyega herself had initiated it.
He explained that the commissioners had met after the meeting with the parliamentary committee on August 12 to discuss what their response should be and, after inputs from all of them, including Phiyega, a statement had been prepared which he forwarded to them individually for their approval.
With the exception of the Free State provincial commissioner Simon Mpembe, who initially agreed with the statement and later texted to say he had some concerns, all the provincial commissioners concerned, as well as divisional commissioners Khehla Sithole and Nobubele Mbekela, had agreed to the statement in writing, Makgale said.
But when he was asked whether Phiyega had chaired the meeting where the statement was discussed, he said it had not been a formal meeting and he had not seen anyone taking minutes, prompting incredulous responses from MPs.
Chairperson of the committee, Francois Beukman, said it raised concerns about corporate governance if Makgale was suggesting he had issued a statement on behalf of the board of commissioners – an official structure of the SAPS – without anyone having chaired the meeting where it was discussed.
“We need to know, is this a real statement or not?” ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane said.
It was suggested the meeting must have been the equivalent of people gathering “under a marula tree” or in a shebeen.
Closing the meeting on Friday, Beukman said the details provided by Makgale had raised “serious questions about corporate governance, but also maybe people we have in certain positions”.
While the committee had demanded a retraction of the initial statement, the police had instead made “a concerted effort not to follow that instruction”.
“We have a duty – we need to oversee the budget of R72-billion – and we need to know that the people in charge of that organisation, at provincial and also national level, will act in accordance with good governance principles,” Beukman said.
The committee would raise its concerns with Nhleko on Wednesday in order to “get the necessary changes to ensure we have the confidence in the people that lead the organisation”.
Earlier, the committee agreed to formally investigate the circumstances surrounding the issuing of the first statement in accordance with Rule 201 of the National Assembly.
Saturday Star