Caryn Dolley
A WAR of words between police commander Jeremy Vearey and Community Safety MEC Dan Plato has escalated to such an extent that the top policeman in the province has been roped in to deal with it.
Yesterday, Plato announced that he had written to provincial police commissioner Arno Lamoer asking him to suspend Vearey, over political comments Vearey made, pending an investigation.
The latest tension between Plato and Vearey, the Mitchells Plain police cluster commander and head of the province’s operation targeting gangsterism, stems from Vearey openly declaring he is a member of the ANC and Plato saying this appears to go against the SAPS Act.
But Vearey, who yesterday declined to comment on the matter, has previously said the SAPS Act covers him legally.
Yesterday, Lamoer told the Cape Times he had received Plato’s letter on the matter and was following “due process.”
This included a probe.
The spat between Vearey and Plato initially played out on the letters page of a weekend newspaper.
On March 23, a letter by Vearey referred to Blikkiesdorp, a temporary relocation area in Delft.
“Is it a case of obvious political irony that Blikkiesdorp was the creation of the current Western Cape ‘government’ which uses the police as the scapegoat for alleged declining levels of safety and security on the Cape Flats?” Vearey wrote.
On March 30, Plato hit back in a letter, saying that Vearey should spend time on policing as opposed to “politicking and letter-writing”.
On April 24, Vearey responded in a letter saying that Plato had applied “new accusatory labels” to him.
In capital letters, he wrote: “I AM A PROUD MEMBER OF THE ANC; I ATTEND ITS MEETINGS OR EVENTS WHEN TIME PERMITS…”
Yesterday, Plato referred to a section in the SAPS Act which said that no police member should “publicly display or express support for or associate himself or herself with a political party, organisation, movement or body”.
However, in one of his letters in the weekend publication, Vearey had said that Plato should read the next section of the SAPS Act.
This section said that the previous section “shall not be construed as prohibiting a member from” joining a political party or attending a political party or meeting, but a police officer should not attend such a meeting in uniform.
In his letter, Vearey said this section of the SAPS Act “covers me legally.”