Ex-top cop implicates Mbalula in 'messy' labour dispute

FORMER acting police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane has likened his removal and subsequent replacement “to a mess” created by then police minister Fikile Mbalula. 

Giving evidence at the Ad Hoc Committee investigating allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, Phahlane said he was in Pretoria in June 2017 when he received a call from Mbalula asking him to travel to a meeting with him in Cape Town.

Phahlane also said he travelled to Cape Town and waited for more than three hours to meet Mbalula amid media reports involving an investigation by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate into him.

The meeting, which was also attended by former deputy minister Bongani Mkhongi, lasted less than five minutes, he said.

“The minister asked in view of all this negativity in the media, ‘is it not better for you step aside?’ I agreed because I am not glued to any position. I accepted the position of acting national commissioner from the president (Jacob Zuma) knowing members of SAPS can be deployed anywhere at any given time as long as they are to serve the people of the Republic,” Phahlane said.

Phahlane told the inquiry that when he enquired who he should give a hand-over report to, Mbalula told him “don’t worry about that”.

Mbalula had told him to go home when he enquired what he had meant about him “step aside”.

“I shook the minister’s hand and left,” he said, adding that as he left, he saw Mbalula’s former ministerial advisor entering with one of the top police officers, Lesetja Mothiba, who was appointed to the position he had occupied.

Phahlane said while he was waiting for his flight, Mbalula “made an announcement to the effect that I am removed” and that he had been given 48 hours to state why he should not be suspended and “incorruptible” Mothiba was the new acting national commissioner.

“I am giving all that to say I was not removed by the president of the Republic of South Africa as the Constitution and the SAPS Act dictate. I was made to step aside by the Minister of Police.”

Phahlane also said it was only days later that he was served with a suspension notice by Mothiba in what he described as “the mess the minister created” at a time when he was suspended verbally without documents.

“If I were to be removed, it was to be the president who in the first place appointed me. To date, I have not received a letter signed by the president saying ‘you are removed as acting national commissioner’.” 

Phahlane was appointed as the acting national commissioner in the place of former commissioner Riah Phiyega in 2015.

“I was in a committee (meeting) when the announcement was made that Riah Phiyega was being suspended,” he said, adding that his appointment was not made by the minister, but by the president.

“I was unlawfully dismissed, and that matter is currently before the Labour Appeal Court, which may pronounce its decision this week or next week,” he said.

Cape Times