The head of the South African Police Service (SAPS), national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega, has just completed her first year in office. A political appointment – Phiyega has never been a police officer – she has had to deal with a succession of crises.
These have included the Police shooting dead 34 protestors at the Marikana mine; the news that the detective leading the investigation into Oscar Pistorius himself faces seven charges of attempted murder; and revelations that around 1,500 police officers have been hiding criminal records. And this week, as the SABC put it, “yet another embarrassment in a long line of foul-ups”.
On Saturday 31st August, Commissioner Phiyega gave a media briefing. It was an opportunity to reset the SAPS narrative and announce a string of senior appointments to take forward the fight against crime. Instead, the headlines were dominated by the blunder surrounding the appointment of Mondli Zuma as the new police commissioner for Gauteng province (which encompasses Johannesburg). Hours after appointing him, she was forced to remove him when it was revealed that he was facing criminal charges of drunken driving.
In a statement, the SAPS stated that Zuma had failed to comply with a recently issued directive for police officers to declare if there were any pending criminal investigations against them. Phiyega said “I became aware of the court charges against Major General Zuma just after the media briefing today. I immediately met with him to establish the facts … I have therefore taken a firm decision to permanently withdraw his appointment … I am sad and disappointed in [him]”; he will face disciplinary action.
So what did Phiyega do wrong in her Radio 702 interview?
First of all, she had not considered the audience and secondly she failed to control the interview and exploit it for her own purposes. She was defensive in tone and on the back foot throughout. It could have been so different.
To close down this issue, she needed to side with her audience who wanted to hear an apology or admission that there had been a cock-up. It doesn’t have to appear weak to admit this if it is combined with communicating strong actions (e.g. “we have taken steps to ensure that it will not happen again and we have definitely pro-actively checked out his successor”).
With that out of the way, she could then have simply made it clear that Zuma was fired as soon as she became aware that he had omitted to tell the truth and then used it as a hook to communicate positive messages and begin to reset the SAPS narrative.
Instead, to the opening question “Are you embarrassed?”, after a long pause that made her appear uncertain or calculating, she said ‘no we are not embarrassed’ (tip: don’t repeat negative or pejorative words in an interviewer’s question - it’s a gift to the headline writers as it was in this case). She then rambled on about procedures in a manner that was neither convincing nor concise. Incredulous, the interviewer came back with the same question and when ignored (don’t ignore questions – it makes you look evasive; address them and move on to your positive messages) he then peppered the rest of the interview with negative questions.
Her arguing that Zuma is innocent until proven guilty of the criminal charges (which had previously been reported in the media and was just a Google search away) was not helpful. Her best defence was to stick to simple answers and use the same language as the audience – perhaps “Zuma lied and that’s why he was fired. I brought in this regulation because I want to ensure that the police officers fighting crime can be trusted by the people. He can’t be and he has gone. Now let me tell you how his replacement will be taking the fight against crime to the criminals ...”
Andrew Caesar-Gordon
