Cape Town - Several metro police officers were “hit, kicked and verbally assaulted” in Wednesday’s fracas when ANC councillors tried to force their way into a meeting from which they had been barred, the City of Cape Town has confirmed.
The officers, who were not dressed in protective riot gear, were also “smacked” and spat on and some had their watches ripped off and their cellphones knocked out of their hands.
DA councillors trying to attend the meeting, which had to be moved to a new venue in the Civic Centre after the ANC refused to accept the Speaker’s instruction to leave the chamber, were also assaulted and injured in the scuffle, said JP Smith, mayoral committee member for safety and security.
“I am approaching the Speaker to lay charges,” he said.
Mayor Patricia de Lille will review video footage of the chaos on Thursday.
“We are currently digitising our CCTV footage of the chaos which transpired on Wednesday and this will be released to the media,” said mayoral spokeswoman Pierrinne Leukes
“Alderman Smith will then review the footage in order to ascertain who exactly the ANC perpetrators were that abused our law enforcement officers. He will then be laying charges against those ANC councillors.”
But the ANC remains unmoved by the threats of possible disciplinary action against its councillors.
“We are not perturbed by this. We are not going to be intimidated by the DA,” said ANC chief whip Xolani Sotashe.
He added that ANC councillors were also man handled by the metro police.
Sotashe said the chaos that ensued at Wednesday’s first council meeting of the year was the “DA’s own doing” and that the city would have to take disciplinary action against all ANC councillors.
Their behaviour was later slammed by De Lille as a “disgrace”.
She said councillors had behaved “like thugs”.
Several irate ANC councillors taunted officers, saying they had every right to be in the meeting.
Many DA councillors were forced to sit in the Civic Centre’s concourse while the meeting continued without them, as ANC councillors made every effort to gain access to the room.
Although the African Christian Democratic Party and the Freedom Front Plus were allowed to take part, metro police were instructed to keep ANC councillors away.
The fracas came after the formal council meeting was brought to a halt by the ANC’s objection to a motion by the DA to stop debate on plans to demolish houses for a MyCiTi route.
With the ANC out of the meeting, and many of the smaller parties also absent, the DA majority continued with the agenda - including the approval of the controversial renaming of Table Bay Boulevard after FW de Klerk.
The hasty relocation of the council meeting by the Speaker also put paid to the ANC’s plans to bring a motion of no confidence against De Lille for several issues, including the treatment of the minstrels and the resignation of top black managers.
But the ANC hit back, saying it would refer the DA-led city’s actions to the Minister of Co-operative Governance.
The furore started when the ANC objected to a motion by deputy mayor Ian Neilson to suspend debate on the contentious demolition of four properties in Wynberg for a proposed MyCiTi route.
The four properties were to be dealt with in the council as three separate agenda items, and provision was made for various parties to speak about each of them.
But after a discussion about the first property, Neilson proposed a procedural motion calling for the other three properties to be dealt with without further debate.
This outraged ANC councillors, who said their right to debate the recommendation was being stifled.
When disgruntled members started to bang on the tables, Speaker Dirk Smit asked the ANC to leave the chamber.
They refused, and for the second time in less than a year the council meeting was adjourned and moved to an alternative venue, barring the ANC.
As word spread that the new meeting would be on the second floor, ANC councillors rushed to the venue to gain access.
In the fracas, a journalist from Die Burger had her cellphone knocked out of her hand by an ANC councillor.
The same councillor tried to slap DA councillor Ian Iverson’s cellphone from his hand.
She told Iverson, who was involved in an altercation with a resident last year, that this was “not Claremont” and that he could not photograph her.
The DA councillors who had managed to get to the venue continued with the agenda, that included the approval of the adjustments budget and the renaming of Table Bay Boulevard.
At a press conference held later, Xolani Sotashe said the DA had deliberately agitated the ANC so that it could stifle debate about sensitive issues.
“We intercepted information that the DA had been crafting a strategy.”
The Al-Jama’ah party said the DA got “cold feet” and did not want to debate issues such as the demolition of Plumstead houses.
“We are very concerned that constitutional principles are not being respected.”
De Lille also called a press conference after the meeting, slamming the ANC for “behaving like thugs”.
She said the action was part of the ANC’s campaign to make the city ungovernable.
“We continued with our business in another room. We dealt with all the items. The ANC will not stop the DA from governing the city.”
Smit said a culture of disrupting meetings had developed in the city. Council meetings cost the ratepayer about R500 000 a session, and as the custodians of the public purse, the meeting could not be cancelled despite the ANC’s efforts.
He said he would seek legal opinion on Thursday for possible disciplinary action against councillors caught on camera assaulting DA councillors.
JP Smith, mayoral committee member for safety and security, said the meeting had to continue so that the adjustments budget, which allowed for an additional funding allocation for extra law enforcement, could be approved. “This is not a game.”
Earlier, De Lille had defended the city’s renaming process, saying that 1 700 people supported the proposal to name Table Bay Boulevard after De Klerk. “This is an overwhelming endorsement from the public.”
She said the ANC’s objection to the name was a sign of resistance to “progressive politics”.
“The ANC has no vision for Cape Town. They have no plans for redress. And they have no credibility except for a memory of a different, far greater generation of ANC leaders.”
De Lille used her mayoral speech and the street renaming to announce a new “Mayor’s Inclusive City” campaign.
“I want to create a platform where we can address these difficult issues in our city and confront what makes some people feel excluded and other people feel entitled.”
De Lille said racial issues, such as the vehement objections from some to the De Klerk renaming, showed that racial issues had come to the fore in the city in recent weeks.
“The recent spate of racist attacks demonstrates that some in our society are stuck in past attitudes and prejudices, including some in the ANC that use insulting phrases such as ‘darkies’ to describe people. Their actions must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
She said the city’s decision to support the De Klerk name was about “reconciliation and building a South Africa that belongs to everyone”.
De Klerk’s February 2, 1990, speech was the catalyst for shaping a new country, she said. “The struggle for which so many people, so many of my friends and comrades gave their lives, had an end in sight.”
She acknowledged that to many the gestures of reconciliation were difficult, but that this was required by real leadership.
“And in the spirit of reconciliation, the reconciliation that Tata Madiba believed in, the council should consider the proposal to rename Table Bay Boulevard after Mr De Klerk.”
Tony Ehrenreich, as leader of the opposition, accused De Klerk of being the “poster boy of apartheid”.
Meanwhile, during the initial debate on the demolition of Plumstead houses, held when the full council was still sitting in the Chamber, Neilson, also the mayoral committee member for finance, said the city would not let the concerns of 26 tenants - of which 18 are in arrears on their municipal accounts - derail a MyCiTi transport plan that will benefit 1.4 million commuters and 35 communities. “It’s time for these people to pack up their bags and go.”
Cape Argus