The appointment of individuals with no policing experience as national police commissioners in South Africa is among the causal factors contributing to the leadership crisis within the South African Police Service (SAPS).

This was revealed during a recent webinar that looked at the leadership crisis in the SAPS and what should have been done to rectify the situation. It was co-hosted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office (CIPLO), and the Hanns Seidel Foundation.

At the centre of the discussion was the bombshell dropped by the KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who accused the police minister and a deputy national commissioner of corruption. The Parliamentary and judicial inquiries, which are about to commence, relate to this crisis and a new police minister who will assume office in August.

Gareth Newham, Head of Justice and Violence Prevention at the ISS, said the National Development Plan (NDP) back in 2011 identified a serial crises of the top leadership of the police. The NDP was adopted by the Cabinet in 2012.

“I think the main challenge has been that between the year 2000 and 2017, the people who were appointed as permanent national commissioners of the South African Police Service were not career police officers. 

“They were not professional policemen or policewomen who had worked their way up through the ranks, who understood the nature of the challenge of policing in South Africa, had walked in boots, understood the difficulties that the men and women in blue face on a daily basis, what it’s like to be in a command situation over a unit or a shift or to run a police station,” Newham said.

He added that the individuals who were made national commissioners without being career police officers were appointed primarily, seemingly, because of their personal and political loyalties to whoever was the President of the time. 

Newham said it is important to leave it up to the police, who are the professionals, to look at the resources they have and come up with operational plans about how to address crime, to structure the organisation correctly, to make sure it has its functions working well and effectively in an efficient manner. 

“The post, the National Commission of Police, is operational. They are the head of the department. They are the counting officer. According to the Police Act, they are supposed to give operational direction to the organisation. Whereas the minister, who is provided for in the Constitution, is the political head. 

“So, we have elections, the governing party appoints the minister of police, and that police minister gives directives to the police, and primarily should be giving those directives in terms of policy and strategy,” he said. 

He said that the permanent national police commissioners who were not professional police officers were largely coming to that post with a political lens, their focus was not on what good and necessary for the police and the public. Instead, they focused on what served their political aims, which is actually the job of the minister.

“And this is why you often see conflict between the minister and the National Commissioner. Both are appointed by the president, both believe they are responsible to the president for what they do, and can only be fired by the President. And so that has always led to conflict between the National Commissioner and the police, as seen back then between Riah Phiyega, who conflicted with then Minister Nathi Nhleko. 

“We also saw Bheki Cele as the National Commissioner being in conflict as well with Minister Nathi Mthethwa at some point. When Cele became the minister, he was then in conflict with the National Commissioner, Khehla Sitole, and that’s where the root of this high-level serial crises, because of course, the commissioner appoints people, and the police minister wants their people in,” Newham said.

He added that this has resulted in a lot of mistrust, a lot of working against each other, and a lot of trying to undermine each other. 

Newham said this is an issue of leadership that promotes a specific ethos that characterises the organisational culture in which the men and women who have to serve the public are invested, take pride in, and are supported to promote.

“We really need to strengthen our (SAPS) internal and external accountability mechanisms, so that when police officers who are engaged in corruption or crime, or various kinds of misconduct, that we can identify them, and if it’s corrective counselling they need in order to just guide them on the right path, we do that effectively,” Newham said.

Professor Sandy Africa, Research Director of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), said in many cases, there have been appointments made, seemingly based on political affinity, rather than professionalisation.

She added that there is an element of managerialism in the SAPS.  

“It was assumed for quite a long time that all that was needed were the skills of management. And so you had, for example, former police commissioner Jackie Selebi, who had been quite successful as the director-general in the Department of Foreign Affairs, without policing experience, of course, he had the background of having been in the trenches in the past, in the uMkhonto weSizwe. 

“It was assumed that the level of exposure to a kind of security environment, coupled with the managerial experience that had been accumulated over time, would probably be sufficient. And it turned out not to be. And again, and again, in the case of others, it seems to have been a mistake that just repeated itself,” Africa said.

She added that even when someone from the private sector was brought in to the SAPS at a senior level (not as a commissioner) for a short period, on the assumption that he would deal with the problems, however, they could not be sorted out. 

She said over the last couple of years, at the very least, professional police have been given the opportunity. 

Africa highlighted that it is the problem of the entire public service to assume that managerialism is all that is needed.

Asked whether the country was starting to see police officers, defence officials, actually entering the political sphere, she said what’s happening at the moment shouldn’t be misdiagnosed.

“I think this is, in fact, symptomatic of the high levels of trust or mistrust, and the kind of breakdown. So, all I am seeing is the fact that there’s conflict between senior officials and within the departments, between the ministers and senior officials, and sometimes even between ministers, as you saw, in the July 2021 unrest, where even the ministers were at loggerheads with each other.

“The conditions actually are, I suppose, such that with the breakdown of authority, of trust, of systems, it’s enterprising that these pronouncements are made, just because the very senior officials don’t seem to trust them sufficiently, and I think this is the crisis that we are facing,” Africa said. 

Cardinal Stephen Brislin, President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said we are so used to having these sorts of scandals that there is a danger that is not taken seriously enough. 

“The police services are there for the protection of people to protect their rights, to protect life itself, to protect resources, and to give recourse for people to justice, so that people may access justice. And when there is a breakdown, as has been alleged, this really breaks the very fabric of society,” he said. 

“There are many good men and women in the police services, and we truly appreciate what they do and the integrity they have, but we also appreciate the suffering and the pain that they must be going through because of all this turmoil within the security forces,” he said.

“In this case, it is just very, very important that we know what the findings of the commission are. This investigator Commission, which we understand how they assess the allegations and who is implicated in any wrongdoing. And we also need to see action being taken about this. It cannot just be left to dwindle and nothing actually happens because that will simply ensure that the problems will continue into the future and that things will deteriorate even further,” Brislin said. 

He added that the church can become a very important voice in this process, together with other organisations and civil society.

gcwalisile.khanyile@inl.co.za

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