Acting police minister Firoz Cachalia says he couldn’t understand exactly what the reasons were for the disbandment of the task team investigating political killings, as they were an ongoing issue.
Testifying before parliament’s ad hoc committee on Wednesday, Cachalia said he did not want to second-guess suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu’s decision to disband the task team.
“I cannot put myself in the position of my predecessor,” he said when asked about Mchunu’s December 31 letter on the disbandment.
He said taking such an important decision required sound reasoning.
Cachalia said he was “quite happy” with the recommendations by national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola, contained in a written report, that the task team should not be dismantled at this time.
“We are having a conversation about how to tackle a problem that is broader and deeper than perhaps it was four or five years ago.”
Cachalia said he met with Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, who was concerned about political killings in the province.
The meeting came after the assassinations of ANC councillors in Soweto, he said.
“I’ve had a great concern about the assassination of whistleblowers,” he said, citing slain health department official Babita Deokaran, who was killed after exposing corruption at Tembisa Hospital.
He also cited Mpho Mafole, Ekurhuleni CFO, who was gunned down in Kempton Park.
We need an organised crime approach which brings together the investigations and the prosecutions – dedicated prosecutors who were deployed to the PKTT team – to deal with the challenge of organised crime.
— Firoz Cachalia, acting minister of police
“I couldn’t understand exactly what the reasons were for the disbandment of the task team,” he said.
“It seemed to me that the problem of political killings was an ongoing one and that in the run-up to the local government elections, it was likely to deepen and become even worse.”
Cachalia said the fact that whistleblowers were now increasingly vulnerable in society – not just politicians but also public officials – meant the police needed a strategy to fight organised crime.
“This is not a problem localised in one province, and it is not restricted to what we might have called political killings in an earlier period. I think the problem is a deeper one now.”
He said there needed to be a response on a national basis to tackle the involvement of cartels infiltrating institutions.
“...increasingly emboldened, quite prepared to assassinate people, apparently without consequences,” he said.
He said many of the cases were not properly investigated.
“I think it is now a national question, and we can certainly learn from the good practice of the political killings task team because that task team’s work was based on an integrated approach to the challenge.
“An organised crime approach, if you like, which brings together the investigations, the prosecutions – dedicated prosecutors who were deployed to that team – to deal with the challenge of organised crime; that’s exactly what we need.
“The criminal justice cluster always struggles to overcome the silo problem, to get different parts of the system working together to tackle a challenge.”
Sowetan
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