If+SA+is+to+have+any+faith+in+police,+Karima+Brown,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 31 October 2006
=If SA is to have any faith in police, Selebi must go=


 * Karima Brown**

SA’s national police commissioner Jackie Selebi must resign his post as the country’s top cop. If he fails to do so — which given his recalcitrant manner I suspect he surely will — President Thabo Mbeki must show the leadership, political will and courage to remove him from his job.

As South Africans count the costs of pervasive violent crime, it is apparent Selebi lacks the vision, skill and leadership required to wage a relentless war against crime.

As criminals become more emboldened by the day, so too does Selebi’s intransigence with regard to rumours that he has links with unsavoury characters linked to the criminal underworld.

What exactly does one make of the Sunday Times report that Selebi was allegedly on the take and had close links to shady characters who inhabit the netherworld of organised crime in SA? Given intersecurity agency rivalry, one has to ask if Selebi may just be the latest victim of a plot to smear him and, ultimately, oust him from his job.

Given the penchant for smear politics, which has come to characterise the bloody turf war between the South African Police Service and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), one can hardly rule out such a possibility.

Only a few weeks ago senior Scorpion operatives were arrested by the police service on charges relating to a host of wrongdoings.

So far, Selebi has only threatened to expose those he claims are intent on smearing his name. Yet no one has yet been identified as besmirching the good name of the commissioner.

The reasons Selebi should go are clear. First, how does a national police commissioner become embroiled in, and be the subject of, an investigation by the (NPA) into alleged links to shady criminals, slain mining magnate Brett Kebble and the mafia?

Second, the silence from Selebi’s political masters following the Sunday Times report was both odd and worrying. Whatever the respective merits of each side in the interagency fracas, it does not detract from the fact that the commissioner’s ability to lead the fight against crime has been compromised by the allegations.

How does SA’s political leadership prove to citizens their commitment to combating rampant and violent crime engulfing cities and homes, when Selebi himself is under investigation for his links to suspected criminals? With stony silence, I’m afraid. All too often silence and denial characterise the way in which government accounts to its citizens on issues relating to crime, HIV/AIDS and other maladies afflicting the South African condition. As citizens we have become too accustomed to this denialism and obfuscation as our leaders refuse to answer questions that relate to our wellbeing.

Selebi must be axed if there is to be any hope of restoring the battered image of the police service, which is routinely outgunned and outnumbered by ruthless criminals. In the midst of a crime wave, it is sad that it has emerged SA’s top policeman is the target of a probe by none other than the elite crime-fighting unit, the Scorpions.

The explanation from NPA spin doctor Makhosini Nkosi — that the unit does not comment on investigations — did not wash when the Sunday Times newspaper splashed on its front page a report confirming that the Scorpions were handed a “secret dossier” listing Selebi’s alleged links to illegal activities conducted by Kebble, as well as to alleged mafia boss Glenn Agliotti, who has been fingered as having links with a drug- and cigarette-smuggling syndicate.

The dossier contains claims that Selebi received a generous R50000 monthly payment from Clinton Nassif, Kebble’s security adviser.

At this stage, please spare a thought for the Kebble family, as it is Selebi, as the head of the police service, who is tasked with finding Kebble’s killer or killers. How does our government expect them, or any other South Africans, to have faith in the police service when the country’s top police officer is the subject of a probe by a law-enforcement agency?

Not even Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula could muster a credible explanation when the Sunday Times revealed that Selebi was the subject of an investigation by the Scorpions. Not a peep from Mbeki’s office either.

This bizarre silence comes amid a flurry of high-level talks between government and business leaders in the last few weeks to formulate a strategy to beat crime. These are the same talks that Selebi did not pitch for.

Clearly, our police commissioner had more important things to do than to meet with senior government officials and moneyed individuals who are concerned about the violence being visited on our citizens.


 * Brown is political editor.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A306171**

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