The leadership of the South African Police Service is rotting at the head and the public deserves to know why there were so much heightened levels of mistrust between the operational and political leaders of the law enforcement agency.
Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola leads the operational side of the SAPS, along with his deputy national commissioners and nine provincial commissioners. On the political and policy front, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu is the political head of the biggest law enforcement agency in the country.
But, Mchunu also did not have the authority to disband the political killings task team unit, a leading policing expert has told IOL, saying he had to go through a parliamentary process to repeal the unit himself.
Attempts to disband the task team have landed Mchunu in hot water with KZN police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who on Sunday unleashed bombshells linking the police minister to criminal syndicates in the underworld, including and allegedly, the likes of Vusumuzi Cat Matlala. He also accused the minister of political interference to shield connected individuals for his own narrow political interests and financial gain.
In December 2024, Mchunu issued a directive to Masemola instructing him to shut down the unit as he had observed that the unit was “no longer required” and that it was “adding no value to policing in South Africa”. Masemola confirmed this week he had no adhered to the instruction, but it remains unclear if his deputy national commissioner Lt Gen Shadrack Sibiya, had done so on his behalf.
The University of Zululand’s professor of criminal justice, Professor Jean Steyn, said the national police commissioner - and in some instances, the provincial commissioners - had the authority to close down a police investigating unit.
“General Masemola has a right to do that, but again, the authority of a province, according to the Police Service Act, is delegated to the provincial commissioner,” said Steyn.
On Sunday, during that marathon bombshell press conference from the SAPS KZN headquarters, Mkhwanazi emphasized that the minister had unilaterally shut down the unit without consulting Masemola or himself.
However, Mkhwanazi fingered Deputy National Commissioner for Crime Detection Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya for acting in cahoots with the minister to close the unit. Sibiya has publicly stated he acted according to the instruction of Masemola, but Masemola this week denied this.
It was unclear if the unit was still functioning as mandated as Mkhwanazi said dockets under investigation had been transferred to Sibiya, who had many of them archived in his offices at the SAPS national headquarters in Pretoria.
Steyn said the minister did not have the powers to unilaterally close the unit. He said in the case of a minister closing down such an investigating unit, the process required a parliamentary inquiry and a parliamentary process.
“It can’t be unilateral especially in our country where politicians are killed left, right and centre. In our province, we have a history of violence between political parties and the cancer of apartheid, it is highly problematic.
“The minister cannot outright close the unit down without consultation with the national commissioner, the provincial commissioner and all role players,” he said.
Steyn said he believed the handling of the saga was essentially another banana peel for Mchunu.
“There is a break in trust between the minister, the national commissioner and the provincial commissioner, that is problematic to the people of South Africa.
“The leadership is rotting at the head and we want to know what is going on,” he said.
“We want to know why are these people not talking to each other?
“Why do commissioners have to speak in television without consulting their political line managers and leaders. That is concerning to me, to the people of South Africa,” said Steyn.
Steyn said the matter of political influence in the SA Police Services structures had been going on for a while, and he believed that is why the government was giving the NPA more bite with the establishment of an Investigative Directorate as well as the new prosecution driven unit, IDAC - the Investigative Directorate Against Corruption.
“The trust to investigate serious crime was moved from SAPS to the NPA. If you look at the Constitution, it says South Africa is only allowed to have one institution that investigates crime, but right now, there’s more than one.
“I think there are attempts being made to clean up the police and there are factions that are politically aligned within the police, that are causing a fracas. It will get worse before it gets better, but we need to know the full extent of the rot in the SAPS,” said Steyn, adding that people were reluctant to open cases with the police due to mistrust.
He added that the SAPS needed to operate like IDAC, who had a prosecutorial driven approach to their probes. He said this would restore public trust.
IOL