Phiyega stands alone

National police commissioner Riah Phiyega's top-level support crumbled yesterday when eight of the nine provincial police commissioners grovelled for forgiveness after publicly backing her in the wake of the findings of the Marikana inquiry.

Irate MPs took turns at lambasting police top brass for their public statement of support for Phiyega.

Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu distanced the police ministry from the provincial commissioners' statement, saying the ministry had not known about it.

"It is not the first time that a national police commissioner has been challenged, but there was never a time when colleagues made such statements," she said.

Phiyega has been under fire since the police shot dead 34 miners at Marikana on August 16 2012. There have been calls from the police ministry and the public for President Jacob Zuma to fire her.

Appearing before the parliamentary police portfolio committee yesterday, the commissioners and others involved in releasing the statement of support were made to apologise to the committee and to Zuma for what the committee said constituted the public undermining of the Marikana inquiry and of Zuma's steps to implement its recommendations on Phiyega.

The Farlam commission, which investigated the Marikana shootings, recommended an inquiry into Phiyega's fitness to hold office.

Adding salt to the wounds of the commissioners yesterday, their apologies became almost comical when, because of malfunctioning microphones, each had to cross the room, one by one, to where MPs were sitting, to apologise.

KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Monye Ngobeni is on study leave and an acting commissioner was sent in her place. Ngobeni will have to face the committee later.

Two weeks ago police spokesman Solomon Makgale, on behalf of the Board of Commissioners, said that there was a "tendency to reduce everything, especially negative issues relating to policing, to the person of the national commissioner, as if the SAPS is a one-person show. It is therefore appropriate that the board publicly declares its full support for General Phiyega, and fully endorses her efforts in turning around the SAPS."

All nine commissioners signed the statement, which they said yesterday arose from discussions at a Board of Commissioners meeting in Limpopo last month.

The commissioners, deputy national commissioners Kehla Sithole and Nobubele Mbekela, and Makgale all faced a dressing down from a united police portfolio committee. The committee said the statement had placed the police in the realm of politics, where they did not belong.

It emerged during the questioning that Phiyega, who had chaired the Board of Commissioners meeting in July, had been present during discussion of the statement.

Mbekela said Phiyega had not participated "directly" in discussions and Mokgale said she had not signed off on the statement, despite being his line manager.

Makgale raised the ire of the committee when he did not include Phiyega in the list of people at the meeting. He had not listed her, he said, because he was "looking at the people in this room".

"So she sat there while her praise singers talked about how to make her life better?" DA member Dianne Kohler Barnard asked.

Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald asked: "Do you think we are idiots?"

The committee demanded the minutes of the meeting but many questioned whether they would be authentic. The provincial commissioners all said the purpose of the statement had been to restore order among SAPS members after media reports had indicated that there was "mutiny" in the senior leadership of the service.

ANC MPs were angered by this.

Livuhani Mabija said the police's similar responses seemed to point to the fact that "you are taking marching orders. Things are being cooked.

"The whole SAPS leadership is here but they are tossing us from pillar to pillar. You are trying to dribble us. We are not here to be dribbled. Can you stop playing games, please?" Police union Popcru, which had defended Phiyega, did not comment on yesterday's development.

Additional reporting by Kingdom Mabuza