Not even prayers will save national police commissioner Riah Phiyega from being suspended by President Jacob Zuma when she takes advantage of her last chance to plead with him on Monday.
Institute of Security Studies (ISS) senior researcher Dr Johan Burger said President Zuma would definitely suspend her to create a “suitable environment” for the commission to conduct its business without her still being in office.
This is after she asked Zuma for more time to respond to his letter informing her of her possible suspension.
She told the president that she would not be able to respond until she had further clarity on the matter.
Zuma had, on Tuesday, in terms of Sections 9(1) of the South Africa Police Service Act, 1995, established a Board of Inquiry into the allegations of misconduct and Phiyega’s capacity to execute official duties efficiently
Judge Cornelis Claasen would chair the three person board. He would be assisted by advocates Bernard Khuzwayo and Anusha Rawjee.
The Presidency said Zuma had provided Phiyega with the board’s terms of reference and given her until September 28 to explain “why she should not be suspended pending the final determination of her fitness to hold office”.
Phiyega’s actions on August 16, 2012, when 34 miners were killed during a violent strike at the Lonmin mines in the North West, in what is believed to be the biggest loss of life in a single police operation in post-apartheid South Africa, was heavily criticised by the Farlam commission of inquiry.
In June, Zuma released the report of the Farlam Commission.
It recommended the board of inquiry into Phiyega’s fitness to hold office after finding fault with the police’s “tactical” plan to deal with the striking miners.
The commission also found the police had misled it about its plans on the day of the killings.
The terms of reference of the board of inquiry, Zuma’s office said, would include investigating whether Phiyega, acting with others in the SA Police Service leadership structures, “misled the commission” by hiding the fact that they had authorised the “tactical option” during a management meeting on the day before the killings.
The board of inquiry would also investigate whether Phiyega, while taking the decision to go the tactical route, could have foreseen the “tragic and catastrophic consequences which ensued”.
The president also wants the inquiry to establish whether a report prepared for him, and a media statement issued on August 17, was “deliberately amended” to hide the fact that there were two shooting incidents, “resulting in misleading the public that all the deaths had occurred at Scene 1, which arose out of members of the SAPS having to defend themselves from an advancing mass”.
Phiyega’s testimony before the Farlam Commission would also come under scrutiny as the board would look into whether the evidence she presented during the inquiry “was in keeping with the office which she holds and the discharge of her duties commensurate therewith”.
Among the many questions to be answered by Phiyega include the disappearance of the provincial commissioner’s board minutes, and not disclosing that there was a shooting incident at the second scene of the Marikana incident.
All the lawyers representing the miners have welcomed the inquiry.
Both the DA and the EFF welcomed the announcement, but questioned why Phiyega alone was being held accountable for the massacre.
Sunday Independent