Polly Boshielo claims that she did not know that Senzo mnchunu, the suspended police chief, was corrupt and that he protected drug cartels. Testifying before parliament’s ad hoc committee on Tuesday, Boshielo said: “The danger is that anybody can implicate you tomorrow…there will always be misinformation.” Boshielo explained that both the Madlanga committee and the ad hoc panel, which are both investigating allegations of criminality in the criminal system, political interference, and corruption, would determine if Mchunu had been corrupt or protecting drug cartels. Ashley Sauls of the Patriotic Alliance asked Boshielo to comment on issues between Mchunu, national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola and Boshielo. “We are working together as a team, and as we work together, we have different leadership skills and different thinking,” Boshielo said. “We saw that the minister and the national commissioner were normally writing letters [to each other] when we should be discussing issues. “When you write a person a letter, it is like you are starting a disciplinary file.” Boshielo said she observed that there wasn’t a good relationship between the suspended deputy national commissioner for crime intelligence, Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, and KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, which she and other officials wanted sorted out. Boshielo said, after showing the committee her full diary, that the notion that deputy ministry earns their salary without doing any work is wrong. We are working together as a team, and as we work together, we have different leadership skills and different thinking.— Deputy police minister Polly BoshieloActionSA MP Dereleen James said the deputy minister could be keeping busy but doing “absolutely nothing”. James said that being busy doesn’t translate into an impact on the crime patterns in communities. She asked if Boshielo was aware that police were investigating a possible attempted hit on Brown Mogotsi — an alleged associate of Mchunu — on Monday night. Boshielo claimed that she had not been aware of the incident while preparing for her appearance in front of the committee. James said: “Just this weekend, [six] people were gunned down in Reiger Park [in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni]. Mothers were assassinated. The people [senior police officers] who are embroiled in this should have been on the scene assisting.”She said South Africans are seeing a disconnect in the work of the Minister and his two deputy ministers. “hand-in-glove”. Boshielo agreed that the task force needed to be coordinated to fight crime. Boshielo had said that she initially believed the letter disbanding political killings task force was fake. She said Mchunu called her early in January to let her know that the letter is legitimate and that it was written by him. Sowetan
2025-11-04 15:13:52
Boshielo highlights poor relations among police leadership
