A high-ranking South African Police Service (SAPS) official is in court fighting his suspension, a case that has become entangled with a parliamentary probe into alleged systemic corruption.
Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, the suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner for Crime Detection, appeared in court to challenge what he claims is an unlawful suspension imposed by National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola in July. Sibiya was suspended on allegations that he interfered with the investigations of the Political Killings Task Team.
Outside the courtroom, Sibiya added that he is awaiting his turn to appear before Parliament's ad hoc committee, which is investigating political interference, corruption, and systemic failures within the police. He specified that he expected to be summoned to testify before the committee on September 10th.
However, this claim was met with confusion and contradiction from a senior parliamentary figure. The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police Ian Cameron, stated that, to his knowledge and that of several committee members, no such summons for Sibiya had been issued.
"It's very interesting that he says he's been summoned because none of us in the ad hoc committee know about it," the Chairperson said. He clarified that the committee had agreed that the first person to appear before it would be former police commissioner General Khehla Sitole, not Sibiya.
The Chairperson suggested that Sibiya may be confused about which body has summoned him, speculating he might be required to appear before the separate Madlanga Commission on the 10th of December, not the parliamentary committee in September. He cited "serious problems in terms of Parliament's communication" if the summons had in fact been issued without the committee's knowledge.
The incident highlights significant delays plaguing the parliamentary inquiry. The Chairperson expressed extreme frustration with the slow pace, confirming that the committee has not yet begun its work despite a proposal to finish by October 31st.
"It is very, very frustrating. It's taken very long to get through the terms of reference and it feels kind of directionless at the moment," he said, agreeing with recent concerns about the slow pace raised by the MK Party.
While he believes the committee's scope -- to investigate all allegations made by Sitole -- is "very good," he identified time as the biggest challenge. The delays, he stated, will make it extremely difficult to complete the work by the end-of-October deadline.
The Chairperson also commented on the controversy surrounding 121 dockets at the center of the allegations, which are now in the possession of the Madlanga Commission. He called it a "difficult situation," noting that policing cannot stop because of a commission, but acknowledged that the very political interference the committee is probing has led to this predicament. He expressed hope that both the commission and the parliamentary committee would soon provide clarity on whether the dockets were tampered with and if the integrity of the investigations was maintained.