Police bosses given a hard time

Parliament has criticised the way the police appointed the head of their internal auditing unit, saying some members of the interviewing panel should have recused themselves because of conflicts of interest.

The police top brass were called to appear before parliament's police portfolio committee after it received complaints about senior police managers promoting friends and relatives.

At the heart of the grilling of acting national commissioner Major-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and deputy police commissioner Lieutenant-General Bonang Mgwenya were claims that the latter chaired an interview panel that failed to ask members who might have a conflict of interest to recuse themselves.

There were also claims that the new head of internal auditing - whom Mgwenya refused to name, citing the right to privacy - was not qualified, but this has been strongly denied by Mkhwanazi.

It is not known which panel members might have had a conflict of interest because portfolio committee chairman Sindi Chikunga said she would not name them.

Mgwenya said that police policy was that managers declare conflicts of interest when it came to appointments, and they were barred from interviewing or short-listing candidates with whom they had a personal relationship.

"I am proud to say that the process followed was [above] board. And the candidate who has been appointed is a candidate that deserves the post. Of course, there will be allegations because in the process of appointing a lot of people have expectations," said Mgwenya.

But that did not go down well with Chikunga, who told the officials that she was not convinced that the hiring of the police's internal auditing chief was above board.

She said it was of concern to her that the person appointed was promoted from within the internal audit division even though Mkhwanazi had earlier testified before the committee that he had been told that no one in that unit at the time had the expertise necessary to lead it.

"As we sit here today," said Chikunga, "we definitely are not of the view that this process was beyond reproach."

She said her committee had received "quite many" complaints about allegedly nepotistic promotions from disgruntled men and women in blue.

"We are getting fed up with complaints that we are receiving from people within [the police] when it comes to promotions."