Police Minister Senzo Mchunu won't remove Phala Phala stain

IN whose interest is the classification of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate’s (Ipid) Phala Phala report as top secret? 

This should dictate Police Minister Senzo Mchunu’s reasoning behind his decision for his continued refusal to make the Ipid report public. 

The report is a sequel of an African Transformation Movement’s (ATM) complaint relating to the conduct or behaviour of police officers tasked with investigating the theft of undeclared US dollars concealed in a couch at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm in 2020. 

Part of that cash was apparently recovered from a group of Namibians, who were apparently tortured by SAPS members despite there being no case of theft opened at any police station.  

There were also claims that more police resources were used to track down the suspects- some of whom had fled to their home country.

These serious claims against the police do not bode well for a SAPS that has long struggled to earn the public's trust. 

In fact they paint a picture of a police service that is prepared to violate its constitutional mandate of upholding the laws of this country. 

The seriousness of the police’s alleged involvement in the Phala Phala farm scandal necessitates that the SAPS dispels these allegations with concrete evidence and the Ipid report serves just that. 

By continuing to block the public from the report through a classification justifies the claims that Mchunu only cares about protecting the image of his boss Ramaphosa. 

If there’s nothing to hide, what stops Mchunu from releasing the report without the names of the witnesses he claims to be concerned about? 

The minister will soon learn the hard lesson that many before him have learnt; that the Phala Phala stain is hard to remove. 

The public protector, Sars, Reserve Bank and the NPA have all tried. Only Ramaphosa can remove it by telling the country what happened in Phala Phala. 

More than five years later, he continues to duck and dive with the help of our law enforcement agencies.