Pretoria – President Jacob Zuma has suspended National Police Commissioner General Riah Phiyega with immediate effect and on full pay.
The Presidency announced on Wednesday that the suspension is to endure pending any decision that is made following the recommendations of the Board of Inquiry which was established to probe allegations of misconduct, her fitness to hold office and her capacity to execute official duties efficiently.
The President, said the Presidency, has considered the response from Phiyega, which was received on 28 September 2015, in which she made representations to him as to why the President should not suspend her pending the outcome of the Board of Inquiry.
The President last month instituted a three-member board of inquiry comprising Chairperson, Judge Cornelis Johannes Claasen and members Advocates Bernard Sakhile Khuzwayo and Anusha Rawjee.
The board of enquiry will probe whether Phiyega, acting together with other leadership of the South African Police Service (SAPS) or alone, misled the Marikana Commission of Enquiry by concealing that it had made the decision to implement a “tactical option”, taken at the National Management Forum (NMF) meeting on or about 15 August 2012.
It will also enquire whether the decision taken to implement the “tactical option” ought reasonably to have foreseen the tragic and catastrophic consequences which ensued and that the remarks by the National Commissioner at the SAPS parade on 17 August 2012 would have been understood to be an unqualified endorsement of the police action and thereby having the consequence of undermining, frustrating or otherwise impeding the work of the commission.
They will further enquire as to whether the report prepared by Phiyega for the President on the 16 August 2012 and the media statement subsequently issued on 17 August 2012, was deliberately amended to conceal the fact that there were two shooting incidents – known as scene 1 and scene 2 - resulting in misleading the public that all the deaths had occurred at scene 1 which arose out of members of SAPS having to defend themselves from an advancing mass.
They will further enquire whether the overall testimony by the Commissioner at the commission was in keeping with the office which she holds and the discharge of her duties commensurate therewith. - SAnews.gov.za
