Should Phiyega step down?

THE surge in all forms of violent crime in South Africa in recent weeks is a stinging repudiation of current National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega. And calls for her to step down have been mounting.

The sentiment that emerged this week calling for the former national commissioner Bheki Cele to return to his former job is proof that many people do not have confidence in Phiyega any more.

Voicing their irritation in the wake of Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa’s killing, many South Africans have been calling for a hard-hitting attitude on criminality. And Phiyega has failed in this regard.

She has been portrayed as too easy-going and lenient, and not connected with her officers on the ground.

Social media has been abuzz with the call that the man who cheered police officers to “shoot to kill” be brought back to his job.

According to TV news channel eNCA, since Cele left office more than three years ago there has been a solid upsurge in violent crimes such as aggravated robbery and murder.

Johan Burger, who works for the Institute of Security Studies, reckons Cele brought a sense of pride to the police service during his tenure.

"You talk to ordinary policemen – from top to bottom – and what these guys tell you is that Bheki Cele was a much better commissioner of police than he was given credit for," Burger told eNCA this week.

There is no easy answer to the question of whether Phiyega should resign. Anyone who pretends otherwise is playing games. But there are serious reasons for her to fall on her sword.

The main argument for this is simple: she is the head of a police force that does not seem able to tackle violent crime in South Africa. As the person in charge, the buck stops with Phiyega if police fail to stop crime in its tracks.

Of course, I would urge her to consider her position. I would be surprised if she has not done so.

The death of Meyiwa was not a one-off incident. Thousands of people are killed and seriously injured in violent crimes throughout the country, every day of the week.

This week, soccer player Sibusisio Vilakazi said three armed men broke into his parents’ home and assaulted them while he slept in a nearby cottage.

The three armed men entered the house in the early hours of Saturday morning, while two others waited outside his Orlando East home.

This comes less than a week after Meyiwa was buried in Durban after he was shot dead in a robbery while visiting his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo in the Ekurhuleni township of Vosloorus.

No one can convince me that the criminals who attacked Vilakazi’s home did not know about the Vosloorus case and the widespread manhunt that followed and led to the arrest of one of the criminals involved in that murder.

The thing is that this Orlando East bunch of criminals wanted to prove that they could do whatever they wanted and not be arrested. They really undermine the country’s police force.

There was also another shocking case involving criminals’ lack of respect for the country’s police forces.

This week, two police officers were robbed of their firearms and pushed into a police van in Midrand by three armed men. These men approached the police who were manning the mobile police station. This shows how brazen South African criminals have become under Phiyega’s timid leadership.

South Africa will have to enforce a higher standard of policing than what we are seeing right now. The most important police officer in the land must observe it. Clearly, the South African police force is battling to do this under Phiyega.

 - Fin24

*Mzwandile Jacks is an independent journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.