Parliament - National police commissioner Riah Phiyega should quit in the light of damning allegations against police leadership in the Marikana commission report, political analyst Steven Friedman said on Thursday.
Speaking shortly after Zuma publicly released the findings and recommendations of the report – which held police management responsible for the deaths of 34 miners on August 16, 2012 – Friedman said the recommendation that Phiyega’s fitness to hold office be probed was not sufficient.
“If the national police leadership was aware of what was happening, if they misled the commission, then the commissioner must resign,” Friedman said.
“Even on the President’s version of it, I think a lot of people will be disappointed if the report has indeed found the national leadership of the police were aware of what was happening, they were directly responsible, they misled the commission…and simply a recommendation to say we should look at her fitness seems way below what we’re entitled to…if indeed she was directly responible.”
The Farlam commission which probed the 34 deaths, as well as the deaths of 10 people in the week preceding August 16, 2012, recommended inquiries into both Phiyega and recently retired North West provincial police commissioner Zukiswa Mbombo.
While finding they had been responsible for ordering the implementation of a defective tactical plan to disarm striking workers, the report also said police management had also misled the commission.
“Police leadership did not inform the Commission that the decision to go ahead with the tactical option, if the strikers did not voluntarily lay down their arms and disperse, was taken at the National Management Forum meeting on 15 August,” Zuma said in his version of the report.
“Instead, they informed the Commission that this decision was taken on the 16th of August, and only after the situation had escalated.”
ANA