Is it bad luck to be National Police Commissioner?

12 November 2015 - 13:56 By Bruce Gorton
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The post of National Police Commissioner appears to end badly for most people who take it - here is a list of all of them since 1995.

General George Fivaz


Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi, and George Fivaz circa 1997.

South Africa’s first National Police Commisioner, Fivaz was a career police administrator with decades of experience before being appointed South Africa’s first National Police Commissioner by Nelson Mandela in 1995.

Unfortunately, most of that experience was under the Apartheid government.

Despite this, Fivaz is the only one on this list who appears to have not left the job in a storm of controversy, finishing his term in 2000.

Jackie Selebi

 

Jackie Selebi was made police commissioner in 2000, and was arrested for corruption, fraud and racketeering in 2007. The trial began in 2010, with his former bestest best buddie, South Africa’s chief of crime Glenn Agliotti telling the courts that he paid Selebi over R1.2 million in bribes.

Selebi was found guilty of corruption and was sentenced to 15 years in jail. This was cut somewhat short when he got ANC medical parole in 2012, having only served 219 days of his sentence.

Bheki Cele

 

Bheki Cele sought to bring pride back to the badge following the disaster that was Jackie Selebi – he represented an era in which police were urged by politicians to “shoot back” and retake the streets from the criminals.

Truly the time had come for the police serve, to provide that it could be a police force.

And then he was caught in two dodgy police lease tender deals worth about R1 billion. Oops.

Riah Phiyega

 

By the time Phiyega came along the post of National Police Commissioner became a bit like the Defence from the Dark Arts job at Hogwarts – in that a lot of people think it is cursed, but it might just be that it is the sort of job that invites that sort of bad luck.

Either way Phiyega did not escape the curse. One could argue that the Marikana massacre was in part a result of the increased militarisation of the police, but at the end of the day it happened under her watch.

That and she didn’t do any favours for herself when she congratulated the cops on a job well done.

Now she may end up facing jail time after being found guilty of perjury‚ misconduct‚ fraud and misleading Parliament by the Ministerial Reference Group.

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