The Democratic Alliance, Parliament’s largest opposition party, says police minister Nathi Mthethwa is sitting on a report that slates the law enforcement agency’s lefgal department.
Party police spokeswoman Dianne Kohler Barnard says the DA became aware of the existence of a “damning” 400-page report into the police Legal Services division about a year ago.
“We put questions to the Minister about the matter. To our knowledge this report had at that stage been kept under wraps by the-then Minister Charles Nqakula for over a year.”
The party was told in November that Mthethwa, then newly appointed to the portfolio, was still “studying the report”. ”Seven months later and it seems he`s still studying it, as no response to our questions has been received,” Kohler Barnard says.
The report, compiled by legal firm Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs at a cost of R8 million, was the culmination of an investigation into the dysfunctional police litigation structures, which at that stage had a backlog of civil claims of nearly 19 000.
Claims took at that stage nearly three years for the SAPS to settle, Kohler Barnard adds.
In the report the much-absent divisional commissioner Lindiwe Mtimkulu, head of legal services, was referred to as ‘autocratic` and unable to make legal decisions as well as suffering from “a fundamental misunderstanding of the law and legal processes”.
Kohler Barnard in a statement avers that Mthethwa is hiding the report because it reveals, what she says, are uncomfortable truths.
“The reality is that time and again civilians are illegally arrested, mistakenly shot, run over or driven into, for example, and that the SAPS legal services head had absolutely no intention of ever admitting liability, and would rather go on appeal time and again when her department lost cases, rather than paying out the civilian.
“The costs to individuals who were absolutely due compensation thus spiraled enormously, threatening bankruptcy to the civilian, but finally ending in massive legal bills to be paid by the SAPS. It is under Lindiwe Mtimkulu`s leadership that the SAPS ran up legal bills of R46-million in 2006/7 – twice the amount paid out in settlements for that year.
“This department head should have been removed from that position by the former Minister, the Minister who now sits at the President`s right hand, and the current Minister knows this is the case. Are we to watch once again as a top cop has their contract renewed and renewed again and again as they damage the reputation of the SAPS? The DA fears that the answer to that question is, ‘probably`.
“We will be asking Minister Mthethwa how it is that someone who suffers from “a fundamental misunderstanding of the law and legal processes” came to hold this position in the SAPS, and why, when it became obvious that under her leadership legal services costs were soaring, nothing was done about the matter.
“It is impossible for the DA to imagine the justification this woman gave for fighting cases time after time where the SAPS members were very obviously guilty of in some way damaging civilians [sic].”
The police ministry referred queries for comment to the police but the designated spokesman could not immediately be contacted.
