Firoz Takes Over Police Ministry: But Who is He?

(The Post News)- President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Professor Firoz Cachalia as the Acting Minister of Police, following his decision to place Senzo Mchunu on special leave. This move comes after serious allegations surfaced, implicating Mchunu in political interference and connections to organised crime. These claims were publicly raised by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi during a recent media briefing.

Firoz Cachalia, born on 22 July 1958, is a prominent South African lawyer, academic, and seasoned politician. He holds a BA and BA Honours degree, an LLB, and a Higher Diploma in Company Law from the University of the Witwatersrand. He also earned his LLM from the University of Michigan in 1996, graduating with distinction. Currently, he serves as a law professor at Wits University’s School of Law.

His political activism dates back to the apartheid era. During the Soweto Uprising, Firoz and his brother Azhar Cachalia, both students at the time, were arrested for distributing pamphlets in commemoration of the uprising while in detention, they were reportedly assaulted and tortured by apartheid security forces.

In 1981, the brothers were detained again under the apartheid regime’s security legislation, spending more than three weeks in custody. They were subsequently banned under the Internal Security Act, which prohibited them from attending public meetings or gathering in groups larger than two people.

Firoz Cachalia played a pivotal role in South Africa’s democratic transition. He was part of the committee that drafted the negotiation letters for the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) and represented the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) during the talks.

Throughout his career, Cachalia has worked across both public and private sectors. He served as Head of the Planning Commission in the Gauteng Provincial Government and previously held the position of MEC for Economic Development. Between 2004 and 2009, he was Gauteng’s MEC for Community Safety and a leader of government business. He also served in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature from 1994 to 2004, including a term as Leader of the House.
https://sahistory.org.za/people/firoz-cachalia

In the private legal sector, he spent two years at the law firm Bell Dewar and Hall and worked as a researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies in the 1990s. He was a member of the University of the Witwatersrand Council from 2004 to 2006 and has been involved with both the Mahatma Gandhi Trust and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.

Politically, Cachalia has held leadership roles in the United Democratic Front (UDF), the African National Congress (ANC), and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In recognition of his contributions, he was named the “Security Personality of the Year” in 2007 by the Gauteng branch of the Security Association of South Africa (SASA).

In July 2012, he was appointed by former President Jacob Zuma as a non-executive director on the Board of the South African Reserve Bank, a position he held for three years. More recently, in 2022, President Ramaphosa appointed him as Chairperson of the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (NACAC), which was created to implement the recommendations of the Zondo Commission.

On 13 July 2024, Cachalia was once again called into national service, this time to lead the Police Ministry in an acting capacity during a critical investigation.