Hawks: Police Minister and acting Hawks boss must go

23 March 2015

The DA notes the North Gauteng High Court judgment that has slated the illegitimately installed acting Hawks boss, Berning Ntlemeza, citing his suspension of Gauteng Hawks boss, Shadrack Sibiya, as unlawful, invalid and unconstitutional. The Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, as the individual who started this series of unlawful suspensions must himself be suspended pending a parliamentary inquiry into his conduct.

Sibiya must be reinstated and Ntlemeza must be removed because he was unlawfully appointed by the Police Minister from the very beginning.

This comes after North Gauteng High Court Judge Matonjane found that there was indeed no legal or factual basis for the suspension of Sibiya and that Ntlemeza acted "without any single shred of evidence." Judge Matonjane also called Ntlemeza "biased, dishonest and lacks integrity and honour."

In addition the Court vindicated the DA's position that the Minister and Mr Ntlemeza cannot pick and choose which report on which to base the suspension of National Hawks boss, Anwa Dramat, and Sibiya but that the final report is the only relevant report "on which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is expected to make its decision as required by law." The final Independent Police Investigative Directorate's (IPID) report stated categorically that "no charges should be brought against Lt General Dramat and Major General Sibiya. The investigation established that there is no prima facie evidence against them." 

The Minister and his henchman, Ntlemeza, have failed in every frantic attempt to get the Courts to bend to their will. Their desperation to absolve themselves from their clearly unlawful conduct by violating a Constitutional Court order and trying to legitimate their conduct ex post facto must cost them both their jobs. 

The Police Portfolio Committee cannot ignore what the Minister and his unlawfully appointed acting Hawks boss are doing to an institution that is charged with fighting priority crime and should be beyond reproach. The silence of the Committee in this regard effectively excuses the Minister's conduct.

I will press the Chairperson of the Police Portfolio Committee, Francois Beukman, urging him to apply his mind to my letter and ask the Committee to initiate a parliamentary investigation urgently. 

Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Minster of Police, March 23 2015

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