Former Hawks Boss Berning Ntlemeza
The Helen Suzman Foundation and fellow nonprofit public interest organization Freedom Under Law said on Wednesday that they were pleased with the forced retirement of former Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation boss General Berning Ntlemeza following his failed legal battle to be reinstated as leader of what is popularly known as the Hawks.
Both organisations challenged his appointment in the Pretoria High Court nearly 18 months ago.
Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said on Tuesday that he received a court order which ruled that the appeal of the High Court judgment via the Supreme Court of Appeal had been dismissed.
The court said there was "no reasonable prospects of success on appeal and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard”.
“We realise that the General’s bullying and at times near-farcical conduct was only a relatively minor phase in the broad-fronted assault on the integrity of our State institutions. There is still a great deal to be fixed and it is up to civil society to see that it is fixed,” both organisations said.
They added, however, that Ntlemeza’s departure did not set right the nation-wide make-over of the Hawks upper echelons since the contrived expulsion of Generals Anwar Dramat and Shadrack Sibiya.
Turning their attention to the South African Revenue Service (Sars), both organisations said that Sars Commissioner Tom Moyane had clearly not finished with his takeover of Sars, “as his blustering presser performance earlier this week shows”, referencing disgraced auditors KPMG’s withdrawal of a report Sars commissioned into alleged illegal conduct by former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan when he was Sars commissioner.
“Meanwhile the persecution of Sars employee Vlok Symington continues – he whose memorandum sank the case against Minister Pravin Gordhan and the other former Sars officials,” they stated.
The organisations said attempts to have suspended Crime Intelligence Head General Richard Mdluli brought to justice were frustrating.
The attempts to rid the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of the officials who blocked the case against Mdluli, and disbarred Advocates Nomcebo Jiba and Lawrence Mrwebi, continue, they assured, as does the case for the dismissal of current NPA head Shaun Abrahams and the nullification of his predecessor Mxolisi Nxasana’s “retirement”.