National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega is not fit to lead the South African Police Service and should be fired. Her latest blunder this weekend over senior appointments shows that she is totally out of her depth and is taking the SAPS down with her.

The DA will be writing to President Zuma today to request that he institute a board of inquiry into Riah Phiyega’s fitness for office and capacity to perform her official duties.

Phiyega’s appointment itself has been disastrous from the get go:

• Throughout the Marikana crisis she has shown her lack of knowledge of policing and failed to acknowledge the police’s responsibility in the death of 34 people going as far as to say that they did not kill them;
• She has failed to address police brutality;
• She has failed to rectify the resourcing crisis in the SAPS a single example of which found stations running out of rape kits earlier this year and riot gear taking months to be delivered to stations;
• Richard Mdluli remains on suspension year after expensively paid year on her watch with disciplinary proceedings yet to take place and the Crime Intelligence Unit in tatters; and
• She has failed utterly to take decisive action following the SAPS criminality audit and dismiss all those members found to have criminal records.

Commissioner Phiyega was hired because of her much-vaunted managerial skills and on this basis she should be fired for her clear lack thereof. Phiyega has shown her amateurish knowledge of policing throughout the Marikana crisis and now it appears that she lacks managerial skills too.

On Saturday Phiyega revealed a restructured SAPS, which included the appointment of Lt-General Bethuel Zuma as Gauteng Provincial Commissioner. After being informed by the DA that he was facing various charges, she withdrew his appointment a few hours later claiming she had been unaware of this fact.

Ever since then, she has been digging her hole of incompetence deeper and deeper.

Firstly, she claimed that SAPS background checks are more stringent than most organisations. This is clearly not the case if a simple Google search revealed Zuma’s charges within minutes, while  SAPS processes failed to do so. It raises the question as to whether a proper background check was even conducted.

Secondly, she has now backtracked even further on his appointment by saying that these appointments were ‘provisional’. If this were the case then why make the announcement in the first place? These two factors make us question the suitability of various other senior appointments made on Saturday.

SAPS has suffered from disastrous National Police Commissioners for years now and Phiyega is a cadre too far. We need a career police officer at the helm and it is President Zuma’s responsibility to ensure that this happens.