By Simon Nare
The Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee to probe KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi explosive allegations of political interference and corruption in the police service has given its secretariat until Friday to finalise the terms of reference.
In its first meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday, the committee members agreed that there was enough legal material at its secretariat disposal to finish the terms of reference by the suggested timeline.
The African National Congress’ Soviet Lekganyane was elected unopposed as committee chairman.
Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema was nominated by by uMkhonto we Sizwe Party to contest the chairmanship, but he declined saying he was not available.
Lekganyane invited political parties to make contributions to the terms of reference, which would be forwarded to the secretariat before releasing them.
“On Friday the preliminary terms will be released. Political parties will make considerations of those preliminary terms of reference and then when we meet in our next meeting, we should be able to adopt the terms of reference and the programme of the committee,” said Lekganyane.
The committee also agreed that when it started its work during August it should sit in Gauteng as Parliament would be in recess.
Members reasoned that by sitting in Gauteng, it may be easier for witnesses who will be called to give evidence.
Some of the witnesses would also likely give evidence in the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, which would probably be in Gauteng.
Lekganyane said the committee would have to further discuss how some witnesses might be in jail and they would be transported to Cape Town when the committee relocated to Parliament when it was back from recess.
The members raised the importance of the work of the committee to expose the corruption in the police service and pointed to a loss of confidence in public institutions by the general public.
“General Mkwanazi has raised the bar and Parliament must also do the same,” said MKP MP David Skosana.
There were also repeated calls by members to afford each other respect regardless of which political party they represented.
But despite these calls, some members did not waste the opportunity to criticise rival political parties with some ANC members calling out MKP MPs for cheap political scoring and populist behaviour.
Lekganyane called for cool heads and warned that members were in the committee to serve the people and not their respective political parties.
“We have to do work in the name of the people of South Africa. These are allegations (by Mkhwanazi) that all of you as representatives of political parties felt that they could not be ignored and be put under wraps.
“So, all the eyes of the people of the republic are on this committee and all the hope of the people of this country are on us,” he said.
Lekganyane reminded the members that whenever unscrupulous allegations emerged, the victims and communities looked to MPs to be their voices.
“All of us let’s work in the name of people of South Africa. South Africans, if we look at the surveys that have been done previously, are losing confidence in public institutions including Parliament. It’s up to us, all of us sitting here, to say those confidence ratings, those confidence levels is that what they represent or do they represent us as members of Parliament?” he asked.
He called on the committee members to prove the surveys wrong.
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