Daily Maverick reports that Lieutenant-General Sehlahle Fannie Masemola is SA’s new national police commissioner and, according to President Cyril Ramaphosa, now has “the weight of the nation’s expectation” on his shoulders.
Ramaphosa told Masemola that this weight would “be matched only by the weight of the support government will place at the disposal of the commissioner”. Masemola’s appointment was announced on Thursday, the day outgoing police chief Khehla Sitole left the national commissioner seat. In welcoming Masemola, a former head of the police’s VIP Protection Unit, to the role on Thursday, Ramaphosa referred to several strengths he had displayed in his career. But, there are some question marks hanging over Masemola. Back in 2012, The Star reported that it “understands that the acting divisional commissioner of crime intelligence, Fannie Masemola, went on a spending spree, acquiring 140 luxury vehicles, among them BMW X3s, Audi Q5s, the latest Jeep SRTs and the latest BMW 320 models”. This does not appear to have stuck to Masemola and fits into a broader, murky arena of smear campaigns – and legitimate accusations – among officers, which have come to be a key characteristic of the SAPS. Some of the uphill work Masemola faces, aside from tackling crime, includes: boosting staff morale following years of infighting among cops, policing scandals, and the arrest of police officers; dealing with the ongoing problem of firearms being smuggled from police officers to criminals; trying to improve the functioning of the Central Firearms Register; dealing with allegations of corruption at the Crime Intelligence unit; and soothing over and dealing with intense mistrust among police in the Western Cape.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Caryn Dolley at Daily Maverick
- Lees ook, SA in ‘veilige hande’ met nuwe polisiehoof, by Maroela Media
- En, ‘Ons moet ons huis in orde kry,’ sê nuwe polisiehoof, by Maroela Media
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