Mathale blindsided by Mchunu's PKTT closure

POLICE Deputy Minister Cassel Mathale initially thought his boss Senzo Mchunu’s letter directing the disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) was fake since he had not been informed of it through official channels.

Mathale came across it through social media, he told the parliamentary inquiry probing KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s allegations. 

Mchunu only called him days later to confirm that he wrote the letter of directives, he said. 

“We had been interacting all along about everything that is to do with policing, but this specific one, this is how we learnt about it unfortunately,” he said.

He said he did not understand what could have motivated Mchunu to pen such a letter in the manner he did. It was also difficult to comprehend how it would be practical to dismantle the team immediately.

“It was saying the PKTT is disbanded with immediate effect and that a plan must be submitted by 20 January and a close up report (submitted) by end of the month. It was not practical to do these things.”

He also said he did not ask Mchunu for his reasons, as Mchunu could write down his decisions so that there is no misinterpretation.

Mchunu had told the committee that disbanding the PKTT was part of normal administrative processes and that it was not unique. 

However Mathale was adamant that the task team did an excellent job and he never got an impression that there were problems with the PKTT.

“Their effectiveness has never been an issue that was questioned. That question was never asked.”

“Whether he is legally correct or wrong I am not able to interpret,” said the deputy minister.

uMkhonto weSizwe Party's Sibonelo Nomvalo, a member of the ad hoc committee, said that he found Mathale’s testimony to be the latest in a long list of testimonies contradicting Mchunu. 

Nomvalo said that all of the testimonies - 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."

Cape Times