Pretoria – Acting national police commissioner, Johannes Phahlane, on Monday defended the appointment of Lt-General Bethuel Zuma to head the police in Mpumalanga.
“General Zuma was charged for reckless and negligent driving and related cases that were spoken to when he was to be appointed provincial commissioner of Gauteng. He has since went through court processes and at the end, you know that General Zuma was not found guilty of those charges,” Phahlane told reporters at a briefing in Pretoria.
“Then there emerged an issues relating to the loss of a firearm (by Zuma). Before court, General Zuma pleaded guilty for the loss of a firearm. What else was he supposed to do? The firearm was lost and he had reported the fireman as having been lost when they broke into his vehicle. A fine was imposed, which he paid in December.”
Phahlane said with those issues against Zuma settled, there was nothing stopping him from occupying the highest policing post in Mpumalanga.
“What else is he still to answer for? If the courts before which he appeared found him not guilty, why must we still be talking of General Zuma? There are no criminal charges against General Zuma. We have advertised the post and General Zuma, like any other applicant, participated in that process.”
Phahlane said Zuma declared the criminal matters when he applied for the Mpumalanga job.
“The panel was satisfied that all those criminal matters we’re accordingly dealt with by the courts – which didn’t give us reason as a panel to hold that against him. I know there was reference that when he was to be appointed provincial commissioner for Gauteng, he didn’t disclose,” said Phahlane.
“You can only disclose if you are an applicant. In the process then, General Zuma had not applied for an appointment. There was no form where he could have said ‘I have the following matters pending against me’. It was actually unfair to continue saying that he failed to disclose.”
Zuma, who headed the Nkandla investigation, faced the criminal charges relating the loss of his service firearm under suspicious circumstances in August 2014.
The lieutenant-general, who is not related to President Jacob Zuma, was previously appointed Gauteng police commissioner but national police commissioner chief Riah Phiyega withdrew the appointment when it emerged that he was facing the criminal charges for drunk driving and defeating the ends of justice.
The Pietermaritzburg Magistrate’s Court acquitted him of the charges.
African News Agency
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