Masemola Should Resign

General Fannie Masemola has presided over a rat’s nest of factionalism and corruption in the senior ranks of the South African Police for just over four years.

Long-suffering South Africans should not have had to wait for Masemola to be suspended after appearing in court in relation to alleged tender oversight failures.

He should have been pushed out last year when the levels of depravity in the senior ranks of police under his command became clear in the early proceedings of the Madlanga Commission and Parliamentary Ad-Hoc Committee probing police malfeasance.

When KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi dramatically spilled the beans about allegedly rotten colleagues in the senior ranks of the police, last July, he didn’t fire any barbs at his boss, National Police Commissioner Masemola.

But Masemola is the accounting officer for the broken organisation that Mkhwanazi described. Whether or not he transgressed the Public Finance Management Act, for which he appeared in court this week, Masemola should be held accountable for his profound inability to prevent factionalism and lawlessness in the police.

Indeed, had he been doing his job, there wouldn’t have been the need for his junior, Mkhwanazi, to take matters in hand with his press conference – and all that’s happened since.

Now, Masemola joins a number of senior colleagues, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and the Police Minister, on the sidelines – at great cost to the fiscus, the criminal justice system, and citizens’ sense of confidence that crime can be contained.

There is no evidence that Masemola benefitted from corruption, but his weak management enabled corruption. The police need stronger leadership.