/ 12 January 2009

Committee on Pikoli sacking meets this week

President Kgalema Motlanthe’s decision to sack the Director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli, has been referred to Parliament for a final verdict and will be tabled on Monday.

At the same time the names of a 22-member multiparty committee to deal with Pikoli’s dismissal will be announced. Fourteen of the members will be from the African National Congress and the committee will be drawn from both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces.

The committee is expected to meet for the first time on Wednesday, when its first task will be to elect a chairperson. The chairperson will already have been selected by the ANC’s parliamentary leadership and will have been well briefed on what is expected from him or her.

In theory the members of the committee are free to set their own agenda and how they tackle their task. The only limitation is that a report must be presented to each of the two houses of Parliament within 30 days.

Parliamentary spokesperson Luzuko Jacobs said on Monday that the committee would be able to call for papers and persons to give evidence before it, if it chose to do so.

”They can call Pikoli to hear his side, if they want to,” Jacobs said.

Each house must take a decision on Pikoli’s future, and each house could — in theory — decide to ignore the recommendations of the committee, though that is a seriously remote possibility.

Motlanthe’s decision last month to sack the director of public prosecutions ran counter to a finding by the Ginwala commission of inquiry that Pikoli was fit for office and drew widespread criticism.

Motlanthe based his decision on a comment in Ginwala’s report that Pikoli’s handling of the corruption charges against suspended police chief Jackie Selebi had shown insufficient regard for national security. – I-Net Bridge