Cape Town -
The City of Cape Town has admitted that gangsters may have been employed by its sub-contractors to provide security at construction sites in Manenberg.
But JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security, said that if this allegation was true, the city would not have been directly involved in hiring gangsters.
“If there is something, it will implicate one of two contractors. We’re eagerly waiting for the police to come back to us,” said Smith.
Police, he said, had been aware of this matter as far back as December.
He said a police report dated December 15 showed that police had unconfirmed information that construction companies had approached Hard Livings gangsters who acted as labour brokers, deciding who could work on projects.
Smith confirmed the city had taken the matter so seriously that it would no longer allow contractors to hire private security guards to monitor construction sites.
“We’ll go rent-a-cop and use (the city’s) law enforcement. It will push up the cost of a project. For example, instead of upgrading 100 flats we can only do 70,” said Smith.
Several Manenberg residents, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said it was common knowledge in the area that a Hard Livings gang boss ran the company hired by a city sub-contractor, and had recruited his gang’s members as security guards.
Weekend Argus tried to contact the man whom residents identified as the gang boss. He did not return calls, despite his wife saying she would ask him to do so.
Manenberg has been the scene of an intense gang war for months and sources said the problem of gangsters dominating the construction security scene had prompted some of this violence.
The city had hired a contractor to upgrade blocks of flats in Manenberg. This contractor then hired two sub-constructors and either one, or both, hired another company to protect the sites.
These allegations have meanwhile become the subject of an increasingly heated political spat. Last week, the ANC told the media about the “deepening DA’s involvement with gangs”.
ANC activists told Weekend Argus the city had known all along what had been happening and was now trying to cover its tracks.
Smith hit back, saying ANC activists had been withholding information about the problem from police, who had dragged their feet in launching an investigation.
Smith said he first became aware in November about allegations that contractors were paying gangsters for security services.
“In a nutshell, when we became aware of the matter, it was clear from the information handed to us that Saps already had the information,” said Smith.
“What is more interesting is that some of the ANC activists and fronts had privileged information pertaining to this which they had not handed to Saps.”
In e-mails Smith sent in early December and which were leaked to Weekend Argus, he mentioned “protection money being demanded by the Hard Livings, and being paid by one of the contractors”.
This indicated the city was aware of contractors paying gangs for some sort of security service.
Notes from a February 6 meeting between city officials dealing with residential upgrades were also leaked to Weekend Argus. This mentioned a “dossier of alleged contraventions” involving Manenberg, which was meant to be handed over to police.
The file of information was not immediately handed to police. Smith said as far as the city was aware the police already had this information. Smith said the city handed the file to police about a month ago.
Smith referred to a police report, dated December 15, which he said proved police were then already aware of the problem.
The report showed police had unconfirmed information that construction companies had approached Hard Livings gangsters who acted as labour brokers, deciding who would work on projects.
It also showed police had confirmed from more than one reliable source that Americans gangsters were used to provide security when two blocks of flats in Manenberg were under construction.
Smith said the police should have started investigating the problem when they had information and the December report showed they were aware of the allegations.
Weekend Argus confirmed police started investigating the allegations months later, after ANC activist Colin Arendse lodged a formal complaint with them.
Arendse confirmed he lodged a complaint at the Cape Town Central police station on April 13.
He said he did this because he had read “a plea” in a daily newspaper from the Western Cape police’s Major-General Jeremy Vearey, who at the time was the head of the provincial police’s anti-gang operation, saying he needed someone to make an affidavit before a docket was opened and the matter probed.
“I was getting my own information including e-mails from JP Smith. It became clear he was trying to cover up something,” said Arendse.
He said Smith had the “wrong end of the stick” and needed to explain why the dossier of information the city had on the allegations was not handed to police.
“They are covering this up like you’ll never believe,” said Arendse.
Vearey, now the police’s deputy provincial commissioner of crime detection, said he could not comment because the alleged hiring of gangsters was under investigation.
Sunday Argus