Fort Beaufort officer ignores transfer order

GRAHAMSTOWN -- Nineteen days after being ordered to return to Grahamstown by SAPS Provincial Commissioner Nico Slabber, controversial Fort Beaufort acting station commander Sontsapho Sishuba is still in his office.

When called there on Monday Sishuba refused to comment, saying he had referred the matter to his lawyers.

"The press has already damaged my image and integrity with their untruthful reports," he said.

Police spokeswoman Senior Superintendent Marinda Mills said Sishuba was ordered by Provincial Commissioner Nico Slabber to report for work on April 1 at his original station, Grahamstown.

However, Mills said Grahamstown area commissioner Director Wilson Thoba had asked Slabber to put the order on hold.

Thoba wanted to try and resolve the issue through negotiations, including the community, senior police managers and Safety and Security MEC Dennis Neer.

However, this strategy does not seem to have worked, because on April 7 Thoba was called to Fort Beaufort to intervene.

One officer had said if nothing was done "dead bodies" would be lying around and Thoba has confirmed he was forced to disarm an officer as a "precautionary measure".

Last week ECN obtained a list of 13 internal charges which had been drawn up against Sishuba.

They included urinating in public at the main entrance of the station, swearing and insulting officers in public, calling one female office a "slet" (slut), calling a sergeant a "rubbish" and "hotnot", saying coloured people had "no culture or nation" because they were "bred out of white and black people" and ill-treating prisoners. He also allegedly released a relative and awaiting-trial prisoner, Mr Dumisani Linda.

These charges will be put to Sishuba in May. Meanwhile last week another internal disciplinary board gave Sishuba a three-month suspended sentence after he received his third drunken-driving conviction.

The board ruled if Sishuba was found guilty of any similar misdeeds in the period he would be sacked.

Mills said Sishuba's second internal hearing in May "will be a dismissal trial because the internal prosecution might request he be expelled".

It was reliably learnt Sishuba was appointed by Thoba as station commander last year, but the provincial commissioner had then refused his appointment.

Apparently Thoba was told that he did not have the power to appoint Sishuba and was warned Sishuba had many departmental and criminal charges against him.

Thoba was unavailable for comment. -- ECN