Cape Town - Police Minister Bheki Cele on Wednesday slammed Premier Alan Winde who he said supported the group of protesters who broke level 3 regulations at the weekend as they demanded the opening of beaches.
Cele met commanders of several policing districts in the Cape Town metropole and later visited the Ravensmead, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu police stations to assess the operational response of the service points.
This came after a number of recent mass shootings. In the latest incident at the PSJ informal settlement in Khayelitsha, six people were killed when three suspects stormed their shack and opened fire.
Cele said about 12 people had been sentenced; six of them were doing life for extortion and other crimes.
“The issue of shooting in the Western Cape is not the issue of police alone – police do their work,” said Cele.
He, however, expressed frustration with Winde’s actions.
“The mentality of Western Cape government gives us problems when it comes to crime. The premier knows very well he is part of the laws that we make, specifically with the regulations of Covid-19 pandemic. He sits there … you can’t just sit there and come back to call those regulations nonsensical and encourage the people who break the law,” Cele said.
“I really want to make a call to the premier to say that is not the way of doing it. Once the law is there, you agree even if you have debated and argued differently. Please ask and call on people to obey the law.”
Winde’s spokesperson, Bianca Capazorio, said the premier did not want to get into a public spat with Cele.
“Politicising crime, which impacts so many of our residents’ lives, serves nobody.
“At no point has the premier encouraged lawlessness in this province. Premier Winde wrote to both the minister of Health and to the president detailing his concerns about certain regulations and pointing out that the beach ban, specifically, was not based on science. He has continued to call on residents to abide by the law and the regulations throughout the pandemic.”
She said the provincial government had a good working relationship with the SAPS in the province on rolling out the safety plan aimed at increasing law enforcement in crime hotspots, and introducing violence prevention programmes.
“We are also working closely with them on the extortion committee because we understand the impact that crime and violence have on communities.
“We have maintained this focus while the minister has obsessed over beaches and used valuable resources that could have been used in the fight against crime in our communities,” she said.