Cape Town - The professed “task team” behind Cape Town’s faeces attacks has lashed out at Premier Helen Zille, accusing her of breaking the law for “party propaganda purposes”.
A task team press conference in Site C, Khayelitsha, was held days after Zille revealed the names of 11 ringleaders whom she claimed were behind a series of orchestrated attacks.
The protests have seen faeces dumped at Cape Town International Airport, the provincial legislature and on the N2.
Zille noted that many of the instigators were members of the ANC Youth League who had used the refrain of “making the province ungovernable” as their slogan. This, she said, proved that the attacks were politically motivated and aimed at rallying support for the ANC before next year’s elections.
On Monday one of the task team’s more prominent members, city councillor Loyiso Nkohla, read a statement in which he accused Zille of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by “seeking to dictate the outcome of pending criminal cases… for party propaganda purposes”.
Nkohla and Andile Lili are among the protesters arrested following the airport dumping. They face trial under the Civil Aviation Act, and could be jailed for up to 30 years.
Nkohla said the faeces protests had nothing to do with a party political agenda, and that they had received no mandate from the ANC’s leaders in the province.
Zille has conceded her office had no evidence that the ANC had instructed the task team, but she said the top brass’s failure to discipline their own members amounted to “collusion”.
“I have had no response to letters sent to President Zuma asking him to condemn the task team’s actions. So I can only presume he condones them. No wonder they act with impunity.”
She also accused the police of watching the proceedings without arresting the poo-tossers.
The Cape Argus asked ANC spokesman Phillip Dexter on Friday whether the party would consider the DA’s evidence against some of its members and take action, but the party has failed to respond to queries.
Richard Pithouse, a political lecturer at Rhodes University, accused the ANC Youth League of being disingenuous considering there was also a sanitation crisis in informal settlements in ANC-run provinces.
Cape Argus