Parliament - Axed national prosecutions chief
Vusi Pikoli told MPs on Tuesday that he was fired
for doing his job in prosecuting police commissioner Jackie Selebi *1
and he accused the executive of interfering in the case.
“This was the reason for my suspension,” he told parliament’s ad hoc committee
reviewing President Kgalema Motlanthe’s decision to fire him.
“The murder of Brett Kebble is when Selebi’s name came up.
If it had not been for the matter of Kebble I
would not have this problem I am having today *2,” he said
referring to the murder that prompted the Selebi investigation for corruption.
Pikoli said he came under pressure from former justice minister Brigitte
Mabandla to drop the case, but refused because it would have been
unconstitutional to do so.
He said former president Thabo Mbeki’s complaint that he had jeopardised
national security by not agreeing to wait two weeks to arrest Selebi was
a smokescreen.
“National security should not be used as an excuse to avoid a criminal
investigation where there is evidence of a criminal offence.
“I would see it the other way round: Public interest would demand that I
investigate this person.”
With acknowledgements
to Sapa and The Citizen
.
*1I'm not entirely
sure that this was the reason or at least that it was not the only reason.
It just does not any sense whatsoever.
But if this is what he says, then this is what he says.
*2Selebi makes no what.
Kebble makes even less sense.
There is more to this than meets the eye.
Maybe Pikoli does even know it all.
*3Sure it is a smokescreen, but for what?
*4National security is always important, but invariably
there are ways of managing.
In any case, a corrupt chief of police, who is only a old party hack with the
brainpower of a chacma baboon, is a far greater threat to national security even
than waiting two weeks rather than a week to arrest him, or even than allowing a
few DSO raiders to do their task without a current security clearance.
Chippy Shaik had never even applied for a security clearance when he was
appointed by Joe Modise as Chief of Acquisitions in 1997 and even when this was
formally reported in the JIT Joint report in November 2001, no action in this
regard was taken against him, even though his conflict of interest had
compromise a R30 billion defence acquisition and was to embarrass the government
and the entire country for a decade or longer.
Chippy was allowed to leave the DoD with great fanfare and pension intact six
months later, after nicely tidying up all the sensitive bits.
Even RAdm Kamerman never had a valid security clearance when managing the
acquisition of R12 billion (1999 Rands - R25 billion in 2009 Rands) worth of
corvettes and submarines from more than two dozen companies in three countries
after a "competitive tender involving a further five countries.
Kamerman was allowed to leave the SA Navy very quietly and pension intact five
years later to join the corvette and submarine supplying company, directly in
contravention of the clause in the Umbrella Agreement entitled Remedies in
the Case of Bribes.