Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu-Makhaza: Mkhwanazi "dragged South Africa out of the mud…"

Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.816)The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is restoring people's faith in commissions of inquiry. With me is Dr. Zizamele Cebekhulu, the Chairman of Safer South Africa Foundation. Welcome, Sir.Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (00:18.698)Thank you for welcoming me, Chris, and thank you for your listeners.Chris Steyn (00:25.122)You are welcome, sir. Already we have seen serious consequences for some people as a result of testimony before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. Now, this is in contrast to the lack of accountability for many people fingered before the Zondo Commission. What has made the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry so effective?Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (00:50.198)Thank you Chris. I think what makes the Madlanga Commission so effective is… they've got all structures in place to deal with the challenges ahead. I think the Madlanga Commission has dedicated itself to this cause. And on the other side, their work has been made easy because evidence has been given to them. So for them is to confirm this evidence and by interrogating relevant people that are alleged to be involved in the whole saga. And I'm telling you, we all, everybody in South Africa, I assume will tell you the same thing, but they do not end up only interviewing and interrogating the people concerned. But they go further. You see that those that need to be pushed for accountability, they are deposited into the machinery. And they are.Also, whoever has not been, they are not clear about, they recall him so that they do their, I mean, they could be satisfied about the job that they are doing. The Madlanga Commission is doing very well, but it's also doing very well because there is an expectation from us as citizens, more especially on what is happening in the South African Police…Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (02:58.388)…not only but in the South African Police Service but across the whole value chain of the criminal justice system.Chris Steyn (03:07.374)Doctor, what do you think has been the impact on the South African Police Service and the criminal underworld…of the Press Conference called by the KZN Provincial Commissioner of Police.Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (03:26.026)Let me say, Chris, some of these things have been known. People have been afraid to talk about them. And because of the structural arrangement of the South African Police Service, that you can't go out, you must complain inside and not complain outside. But really, the decision that has been taken by General Mkhwanazi and others, I think we commend it because at a face value, you could see that the South African Police Service, the justice system and Correctional Services have been infiltrated by the underworld criminals.How far they've gone in terms of infiltrating it, we still have to hear. But what has been brought on the surface shows that we really do not have criminal justice. In fact, they own it. And we want to say really to those who come with some insinuation, saying that, I mean, trying to discourage what General Mkhwanazi has done, we feel that they are not correct. I was very disturbed by the comment of the minister when he said things last week. He agreed that things are not well in the South African Police Service. But he further said, even Mkhwanazi should not have done what he did. And I could not get him very well. And I was very disturbed if it came from a minister. Because what Mkhwanazi did helped this country. You don't know. He helped this country in various ways. In fact, he took this country…Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (05:54.557)…out of mud and bring the country to those, bring the information to those who have got the capacity to clean the country. And we can't take this information that Mkhwanazi brought for granted. We have to, in fact, wait for the Malanga Commission to come, but we have an expectation as the citizens and our expectation is that it's based on reality. And this understanding that we have is that it's based on reality that we understand. We are growing democracy. There will be problems that we are going to confront. But our expectation is that when we find problems of such nature, we have to act on them decisively. And we are looking at…At the end of the day, we want the president to deal with this matter in a very decisive way. We expect him as the Commander-in-Cchief of the armed forces to…Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (07:10.588)…act very decisively on the matters at hand or matters that the Madlanga Commission are dealing with. Chris Steyn (07:20.602)Doctor, what did you make of Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee hearings into police and political capture?.Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (07:36.654)To me, Madlanga Commission was enough.The Ad Hoc committee… I think they are supposed to be blamed because they are the, I mean, from the inception of our democracy, they've been monitoring the police, Correctional Services and other…. But what happened? Why didn't they find this?Is there any person who, I mean, there must be somebody who could have said to them, something is happening there, do something about it. And to me, to me, it was a hijacking of the process of the Madlanga Commission.Chris Steyn (08:35.671)So you're referring also to the Portfolio Committee on Police prior to the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee? Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (08:43.584)Yes, I refer to them. I think there are many monitoring devices, which is the Portfolio Committee is one of the devices that monitor activities in the South African Police Service. And how do they comply with the Constitution? How do they comply with the legislative framework they operate within? How do they...police service, acting in line with the principles of human rights. All those things are in their head. They can't wake up today and form an Ad Hoc committee, yet they've been knowing, I mean, they've been there as one of the monitoring devices that are there in our government. Chris Steyn (09:38.103)So in your opinion, what are the key priorities now for the State to fully restore faith in the Criminal Justice System? Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (09:48.532)Yes, I think there are things that need to be done. Chris, I think...we have to deal with this meta-structurally. Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (10:11.146)The police are there to make sure that... Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (10:20.054)…an accused or alleged accused person is delivered to court. Prosecution accepts him, which is an NPA, and then takes the case, both police and an NPA, to justice. And thereafter, decide what happened with that person after prosecution. Does he go home or does he go to prison and then the prison officials accept him. So first thing, we must create a very strong coercion amongst criminal justice system or criminal justice departments. They must work together. They must not work in silos. They must work together. And when we talk about crime statistics, crime statistics must not be accounted for by the police alone. Crime statistics, because the fight against crime does not end up from securing the attendance of an accused to court, but it is the beginning. You must account statistically as the police, how many you deposited and how many you prosecuted and what are the result of the prosecution. And that is accounting on criminal crime statistics, not the number of people that you collected from the street and you deposited into the system. Then that is the manner, that is the only way you account for crime. That is one. Two, we must allow the structures of the police. They are too tall, Chris. And they are too tall and they don't they don't assist in communication. Three, across the criminal justice system, when they go for Budget voting in Parliament, all of them must because they are counted in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act. All of them, they are counted in terms of those provisions because that is a chain that can't be broken… Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (12:45.546)…whether you like it or not. And there must be a real transformation of the police, Department of Justice, as well as Correctional Services. These things must talk to each other, which is not happening. And I think the President must deal with that first. And then when you come to, thereafter you come to structurally. The structure of the police is too tall. And...nobody knows what to do. Therefore, you find these people who are more involved in the Maddanga Commission, as we speak, belong into that top tier of the police, who have long distanced themselves from the real policing on the ground. Therefore, let's operate the police on a very flat structure and take certain operations from the police, distribute them operational power to provinces. It can't be held nationally. It's the province that knows the geographical situation of their and other environmental factors. It's them who know, not the National Commissioner who sits at head office. The National Commissioner at head office must drive this strategy of the police, that's all. The office must drive the strategy of the police, that's all. And the provinces must decide on procurement of resources that they need. Give power, operational power to the provinces.Because all these problems that are in the Madlanga Commission happen there… and the Police Commissioner in the province is suffering because he's the one who's fighting crime. Certain tiers of management must be done away with in the South African Police Service. And another thing, we must depart from this thing of, in fact, that is provided in the Constitution, that police must change from a force to a service.Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (15:10.538)We can't have generals at this time. We can't have generals at this time. We must have commissioners because we are providing service. Another thing, it has been a long story. Everybody talks about involvement of the community. Involvement of the community, it needs involvement of the community and there must be structures of the community that are created that work with the police, not one person whom you think is there and you think that you are going to only use members of the community as informers. No. They must be your partner in fighting crime. Because let me tell you, Chris, if you fight crime and somebody will come and give you information, you take that information and you are not accountable for that information and you take it and process it. At the end of the day, that information happens to be used to kill the person who reported. Then that's the problem. When a person informed or a certain whistleblower says something, there must be a member of the community there who is in the process of the whole information so that the plight of a member of the community who happened to be a whistleblower must be protected. That is what we feel. And structurally it must change, operationally it must change because as it is of now, no, the police is not effective. And the reason why Mkhwanazi has stood up is not because he complained about, but he was also complaining about a resource that is being taken out of his province. That is a resource that was being deprived of a resource in the province to fight crime by people who sit at head office, wgo have got nothing to do with crime. But on the other side, we want to see, we want to see…Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (17:36.918)…the appointment of a National Commissioner to be of the same as the appointment of a… Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (17:53.277)…of a Section 9 ... .your Public Protector or whoever, that person must be interviewed by a panel of independent people. Because the problem that we have now is because you hear tomorrow there is a National Commissioner and a National Commissioner that has been appointed, you don't know where he comes from, what he has, what qualification he has.We need a person who will be able to manage. Sometimes, Chris, I don't want to say a person who is educated. I want to say a person who is relevantly educated. Here I talk about Mkhwanazi. People will say I talk about Mkhwanazi, Chris. Mkhwanazi has got an MBA. He understands the essence and the concept of management.You have got the current commissioner who is suspended. He has a police qualification. He's supposed to be fighting crime. He's vice versa. A person who is supposed to be managing the function, creating synergy on the functions, sees to it that all functions are working together and understand the same PFMA…Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (19:33.195)…and other legislation.I think Mkwanazi is relevant. And others, of course, and others, of course, that I don't know, but I'm making him as an example. You understand? I'm asking myself, why this mismatch of skills? The skills that we need are somewhere and they are not where they were to go and the skills that we don't need are somewhere. And I don't blame the National Commissioner. People have charged him for PFMA provisions for not understanding it or not understanding it, but not complying with them. But does he understand it?That is my challenge. The skills in the South African Police Service must be deployed accordingly. And the person of Mkwanazi’s calibre and others could help us to do that. Another thing that we have to deal with in the police is the matter of understanding it. The police is a labour intensive type of service. I was making an investigation, Chris, recently. They complain about… dboots on the ground. I understand them. But over 300 police officers are sitting at head office in the offices. Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (21:25.17)… I don't have my statistics here, but next time I'll give you those statistics. They are sitting in the provinces, in the offices pushing papers. These are people who are what we call, who are trained to be what we call… certain positions in the South African Police Service.You talk about Human TResources. You talk about Finance Management. To talk about all those functions that you really need …and expect in each unit, Internal Auditor, all those things. I don't know whether they do have an internal auditor. The Commissioner was not going to be a victim of the PFMA, of understanding the PFMA provision if there were internal auditors there. Therefore, you have to put those skills in place. But what is happening in the police, they put a rank into the position, not a skill.Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (22:36.222)I said, the police is a labour intensive department. You need to have a very strong HR department. But for the past 10 years, South African Police Service has never had a qualified HR general. Instead, they've got a general. So that is what. Another thing that we must do is the transformation of the police is not an event. It must go on. There must be a political oversight in it. There must be a political oversight. These guys can't change themselves. Remember where we come from with the police. There must be a change. I'm not talking about interference. I'm talking about pushing for what we call, and you must get somebody neutral or somebody from outside to run that… I think during Mandela's time and Sidney Mufamadi’'s time, they tried to make it correct. I think for transformation purposes, Mandela, knowing very well that the police were not going to transform themselves, he put Major Khan. And Mayor Khan was there to assist and to look at which direction is the South African Police Service transforming. But after that, that function was put aside and they wanted to lead to what we call to drive the South African Police as normal. Coming to the courts, the NPA in courts, I think the NPA must know what they want to do. Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (24:35.976)NPA must go out of investigation. They must prosecute. There are a lot of cases in what you call this thing of forming a small investigating team… it's because they see that the South African Police is not working. Why? Because there is no synergy in operation in all the departments. They take a shortcut, what you call. No, that needs to be addressed. They… must work together as a chain and stop overlapping in their work. If the South African Police Service investigation is not doing well, something needs to be done as soon as possible. But when you leave and decide to form your own investigation unit, then that becomes a problem.Another thing, South African Police must stop bullying the community and lie to the community. Lying in the sense that all the time you will hear that, hey, we are, there is a problem, let's say in Western Cape, there is a problem in Western Cape. There is a problem in Western Cape of gangsterism. And the answer would be, we are going to form a unit, Gang unit. When there's a problem of some sort, we are going to form a unit of what you call. But if now you can call a National Commissioner and say, give us an account of all these units that you have. And what are they doing? How much did they use? What was the output? Account on the output. They can't tell you because those units are not there. They are not existing. They are ghost units.Another thing that we want to call, the president, I think, must act decisively on these matters because they are life and death to us as members of the community. And therefore, when you cross to the Department of Justice, I think the Department of Justice must not try to...Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (26:57.92)…hide what Mkhwanazi has revealed because everybody knows what has happened. I think we are the victims, all of us, of courts that take decisions that you don't understand. Two, courts are not working properly. They are...the machinery is not moving… are all the time at tea time. They're all at the time at tea time. And also, a lot of people, more especially who committed very serious crimes, you find them on the street on bail. You ask yourself, why? We know conditions of bail. We know what you have to account for if you want to go to bail. Why are they outside on the street on bail. You ask yourself, why? We know conditions of bail. We know what you have to account for if you want to go to bail. Why are they outside?I think they must accept that and because they are not going to deal with this matter if they don't accept first. They must accept there is a problem….There is a problem in the Department of Justice and the underworld has infiltrated them. I'm happy that Madlanga is...will overlap into those terrains and reveal to us what is happening in those terrains and also in Correctional Services. Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu (28:37.61)…The first thing I think they have to deal with is the rehabilitation programmes. The rehabilitation programmes are not, we are very happy that they are doing away with the private prisons. The private prisons are going because rehabilitation is a duty and it's a function of the state. It's function of government. Rehabilitate your prisoners so that you are going to reconnect them with the society at the end of the day.But my challenge is with the Correctional Service, their programmes are not designed to achieve that. They're not designed to achieve that. And therefore, going back to accounting for crime statistics, they themselves, they must say, we have rehabilitated so many, what you call, so many people. We've given them skills of this….That is a holistic type of report on statistics of crime. Not just tell us about how many people you collected them and you put them in the van, deposited in the court. What happened about them we don't know. Then that's not crime statistics. We need the whole criminal justice system to account on crime statistics. And the last thing that I could say, there are many things that I can say. I think the Constitution stipulates that there must be one's Police Service under one National Commissioner. That's the provision of the Constitution. These Metro Police, these Ekhurhulenii Metro, JMPD, all these things that have been created, all of them, they must be taken back to the police. And let's have one police service that accounts for crime in South Africa. Thank you very much. Chris Steyn (30:52.896)Thank you, Doctor. That was Dr. Zizamele Cebekhulu, Chairman of the Safer South Africa Foundation. Thank you, Sir..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu-Makhaza: Mkhwanazi "dragged South Africa out of the mud…"

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