Sibonelo Nomvalo, a Member of Parliament (MP) for the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, said that he found the testimony of Deputy Minister of Police, Cassel Mathale, to be the latest in a long list of testimonies which has contradicted that of suspended Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu.
Nomvalo shared his thoughts on Tuesday afternoon after he had the opportunity to grill Mathale at Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating allegations made by SAPS KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Mathale revealed that to date, Mchunu has not assigned him delegated powers.
Mathale ascribed the non-assignment of the delegated powers by Mchunu to being in the process of familiarising himself with the SAPS environment.
“We are almost at the tail end of this familiarisation process,” he said.
He also added that he thought the directive of the PKTT’s (Political Killings Task team) disbandment was fake when he saw it on social media.
“When I saw the letter of the disbandment of the PKTT, I had a problem with how it was written because it was not practical to do those things.”
Nomvalo said that all of the testimonies they have heard – barring that of suspended deputy police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, “who lacks credibility” – have been “rebutting all the averments made by the suspended minister” in his disbanding of the PKTT.
“There is no one from the department who says, ‘I was consulted in this decision’, and ‘I think it was fair’ or ‘I think it was logical’. Nobody except the minister (has said that).
“What appears here is that there are deep-seated problems which are engulfing SAPS in the country – some are administrative. It is so inexcusable that after 12 months, there is no performance plan that has been signed by the suspended minister, which gives delegated functions to deputy ministers.
“It means that the suspended minister is just running the show alone, and those two deputy ministers are just sitting there, waking up, with nothing that compels them to perform a certain task.
“How are we going to assess their performances when there is no performance plan which has been developed, which gives them permanent responsibilities for the duration of their term? So you are going to measure their performance against what? That is another crisis we are faced with,” Nomvalo said.
“Many things are getting revealed here (at the Ad Hoc committee) gradually, and many of the things that have been exposed are gruesome and shocking. We didn’t know that such terrible things were finding expression.”
“As it relates to Minister Mchunu’s evidence that he had used here, I think that there is more to it, and that it doesn’t withstand any validity.
“You can see now the direction the whole thing is taking, and we are just commending all the officials and the other members who have come here for showing their bravery against dictatorship, which has been taking place in the SAPS,” Nomvalo said.
“It means that if somebody works alone, without even involving his ministers, despite the problems that have been alleged by Mkhwanazi, it means there are other problems, (and) dictatorship and dogmatism are some of those problems.”
