Mary De Haas willing to testify before committees investigating SAPS

VIOLENCE and criminality expert Mary De Haas has stated that she is willing to testify before the committee and commission investigating the allegations of the infiltration of the South African Police Service (SAPS) by criminals.

- THAMI MAGUBANE

De Haas, of the KZN Violence Monitor, said she is prepared to give her side of the story. She has taken exception to being described as an academic at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Her name first arose during the testimonies given by KZN Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. It came up again yesterday during the testimony of the suspended police minister, Senzo Mchunu, before the Ad Hoc Committee.

In his testimony, Mkhwanazi challenged the committee members to invite De Haas to testify.

“I do not know De Haas; I have never met her and have not studied at UKZN, but I have learned that she is an academic there. 1 am disappointed. If I were a student of De Haas and she made me pass a certain qualification, I would begin to wonder if that qualification was credible. You cannot be a researcher and have someone sending you something, believe it to be a fact, and then communicate it out there. As a researcher, if that is what she is, I am beginning to question the institution that she works for. I think Mary De Haas is a desktop researcher, if anything; that is all she does,” Mkhwanazi said during his briefing to the committee.