ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula. (X)
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula said he was confident Police Minister Senzo Mchunu would discuss the allegations that he interfered in police operations and misled parliament made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
“I’m fully confident that he will engage with the leadership of the ANC on the disparaging allegations that have been made. He owes it to the ANC; he doesn’t have to be commanded,” Mbalula said at a media briefing on Monday.
He spoke a day after Mkhwanazi said at a media briefing that a high-profile political killings task team had been disbanded because it was closing in on politicians and others who had been linked to a criminal syndicate in Gauteng.
Mkhwanazi said on Sunday that Mchunu had ordered the closure of the team formed in 2018 to investigate politically motivated murders in KwaZulu-Natal but had since been used in other provinces, because it had uncovered links between drug cartels, politicians, police and prosecutors. Mkhwanazi accused senior police leaders of corruption and obstruction.
On Monday, Mbalula said Mchunu would brief ANC officials “as a deployee” of the party.
“But at the end of the day, where action must be taken is in government, it’s not in the ANC. And the ANC would like to see action,” Mbalula said.
On Sunday, Mchunu accused Mkhwanazi of making “wild allegations” that required “an urgent, thorough and transparent investigation, on a proper platform”.
“The minister of police will never allow his integrity, that of the ministry or the SAPS [South African Police Service] at large, to be undermined by insinuations made without evidence or due processes, from anyone, including Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi,” the police minister said. “We will be reviewing the provincial commissioner’s statements and consider appropriate action.”
Mbalula said the issues raised by Mkhwanazi must be attended to, and the facts established.
He said the party would not defend Mchunu or any of its members implicated in wrongdoing.
“This thing that we are complicit in as a party to the protection of wrongdoing, maybe it happened in the past. At the present moment we’re carrying out our renewal project,” Mbalula said.
“We have said that even if you are members of the ANC and you are arrested, you are on the wrong side of the law, you are accused of corruption, you step aside. We are without our former secretary general [Ace Magashule] in the party because we had to put him on a step aside.”
The ANC’s step-aside rule stipulates that members charged with criminal offences must relinquish their positions until they are cleared of the charges.
Mbalula said some South Africans had already decided that Mchunu was guilty, but he still had to tell his side of the story.
He added that the country’s fight against crime had taken a turn for the better since Mchunu became police minister last year.
“We have been praising the minister and Mkhwanazi [for their performances in their jobs], then, boom, there is a problem between the minister and generals. None of us would say we know.”
Mbalula said the issues Mkhwanazi had raised required serious attention and President Cyril Ramaphosa had committed to getting to the bottom of the allegations