Meanwhile we have seen a senior public prosecutor have two attempts made on her life shortly after handing a 200-page report on the lifting of the murder charges against Mdluli to the acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority, who now mysteriously says she never received it. [Interjections.]
We have the General Council of the Bar pointing to a spate of thefts from and harassment of advocates. There have been thefts of laptops and documents from advocates involved in high-profile cases involving the Minister of Police or police in his department. I do not believe in coincidences.
Equally, in the case of a member of the board of inquiry inquiring into the suspended National Police Commissioner, three men armed with R5 assault rifles robbed him of laptops and documents. The rifles were the same type as those recently reported stolen from a safe at the Waterkloof Air Force Base. The stolen rifles belonged to the VIP Protection Unit which, until moments ago, was under Richard Mdluli. Let me repeat: I do not believe in coincidences.
Chairperson, today we read on the front page of the Cape Times that an affidavit requesting a probe into Richard Mdluli's alleged abuse of state resources was one of the documents stolen from a lawyer's Johannesburg home. [Interjections.] The affidavit, written by the Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, was intended for the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela. [Interjections.]
Here is a senior member of Cabinet, unequivocally stating that:
There is a reasonable suspicion that Mdluli, in his capacity as head of crime intelligence, may continue to abuse his power since he has been reinstated back to his job after his suspension.
Now Mdluli has simply been placed elsewhere within the SAPS. While what we are seeing is a fundamental collapse of trust in our Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster institutions, the Cabinet has claimed simultaneously that it did not discuss the Richard Mdluli saga, but had somehow - without discussion - come to the conclusion that what was going on in the SAPS was merely a series of "public spats". A spat? That is what I would call the outcome of two women reaching for the same dress at a sale! [Laughter.] This was a comment from the collection of what are supposed to be the best political brains in the country. Are they frightened of Richard Mdluli? Some are saying they are.
The South African public believes the situation is severe. The political infighting and factionalism are paralysing our law enforcement agencies. It is severe in that many believe that we are teetering on the brink of becoming a police state. [Interjections.] This situation is being described as the greatest threat to the criminal justice system South Africa has faced in years. This has been cadre deployment at its very worst, as a deeply, deeply compromised person was allowed to resume his position despite a national outcry.
Link all of this with the ongoing leadership battle within the ANC ahead of its elective congress. The outcry about the mismanagement of the SAPS by the suspended National Police Commissioner pales into insignificance in the face of this debacle. [Interjections.] Meanwhile every South African newspaper, and radio and television station has been highlighting the war between the various factions within the SAPS. This is the same Cabinet of the current government under which the Ministry of Police has become something of a hot potato, with one National Police Commissioner behind bars, the next suspended for conduct that was improper, unlawful and amounted to maladministration, and the latest under investigation by the Public Protector, who says there is a prima facie case of improper conduct and abuse of power which warrants investigation.
Now, what we have seen is what happens when the wrong person is on top. With just 5% of the SAPS budget audited, the Auditor-General found R76 millions worth of irregular expenditure. [Interjections.] Presumably you find that acceptable, hon member. [Interjections.]
Of equal importance to the Mdluli saga has been the response by the SAPS and the Ministry to the Glenister judgment by the Constitutional Court, when it ruled on the unconstitutionality of the Hawks. It was left to Parliament to ensure that a sufficiently independent unit was created and it did not determine that it should be within the SAPS.
We had such a unit, of course, but the Scorpions were shut down because they investigated corruption without fear or favour and one ANC politician too many ended up feeling their sting. At the time, virtually every legal firm, NGO, individual citizen and Member of Parliament who spoke against the closure of the Scorpions said they believed Bob Glenister would win his case. Yet hon members Maggie Sotyu and Yunis Carrim said the decision had already been taken at Polokwane and would therefore be implemented no matter what. The tens of thousands of petitions, the marches and the editorials were ignored, and Parliament and the Portfolio Committee on Police have ended up with egg all over their faces. The two who drove the closure of the unit were, of course, given deputy ministerial positions - one, ironically, of Police.
We all know that full independence means exactly that - a unit that will serve this country without fear or favour, and not primarily members of the SAPS who have simply been gathered together and named the Hawks. The "Blue Code of Silence" always has and always will mean that police close rank to protect their own from investigation - there can be no independence in a ranked structure.
While we have taken this brief break for the debate today, the Portfolio Committee on Police, known as the toughest portfolio committee in Parliament, with the strongest chairperson in Parliament, is presiding over this bizarre process of virtually rubber-stamping what the Secretary of Police finally presented a few weeks ago - more than a year after the judgment. No attempt seems to have been made at all to include anything but a single correction thus far of 12 substantive inputs from top law professors and advocates from around the country. Indeed, it seems the committee is simply being herded down a predetermined path of going through the motions, pretending this is all a democratic process. [Interjections.] Not a single deviation from this path is even being considered. This is exactly what happened the last time. This is exactly the same process that ensured this whole sorry mess has been dumped back in the lap of the Portfolio Committee on Police.
Mr Glenister has already stated that he will take this proposed Bill straight back to the Constitutional Court should he not believe the unit to be sufficiently independent. This is hardly comforting for South African citizens, who once again become equally scornful and terrified of SAPS members because, according to IPID, they shoot to kill - and miss - on a regular basis, killing civilians and protesters, while, on the other hand, they demand bribes, rape, rob, torture and plunder. Civilians are terrified because the difference between "armed pursuit" and "extrajudicial assassination" has become increasingly blurred.
At least we now know why there are so many of them that miss what they aim at. It's because 27 000 of them are carrying firearms without having passed the test for their licences. In fact, many of them have actually tried and then failed to get their licences but, of course, the move by the acting National Police Commissioner to do the right thing and disarm them was stopped in its tracks. He then told us not to panic and that this was all a misunderstanding - as if proper training in the use of firearms was negotiable for SAPS members. Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding that the Westville Hospital gunman who held staff hostage was able to renew his firearm licence despite having bipolar disorder, while SAPS members can't even get theirs renewed at all.
We have hundreds of deaths in custody and at the hands of SAPS members, as well as allegations of hit squads operating in several provinces. Indeed, in between the stories littering the pages of the media, all focusing on the issue of the looting of the crime intelligence slush fund, or funds, by SAPS members and top politicians - and, this past weekend, the revelations of a second slush fund - are reports relating to an unprecedented assault, for the first time in our democratic era, by police using unrestrained violence in hunting down both criminals and noncriminals alike. This is literally exploding across South Africa.
To turn the dire situation in the SAPS around, what we need here today, in Parliament, is an assurance from the Minister that Richard Mdluli, this deeply compromised man, is not even being considered as our next National Police Commissioner. Just say it! [Applause.]