THERE must be some extremely worried people about General Jeremy Vearey’s chances of becoming the next Western Cape commissioner of police.
So petrified are they of this happening that they have gone out of their way to try and sink him in a quagmire of manufactured scandals, innuendo and malicious rumours.
The most recent bid to sully his reputation and undermine his integrity dropped in a Sunday newspaper last weekend.
That hatchet job against General Vearey did not come out of the blue because he has managed to irk a lot of people, from DA politicians to gangsters who have at times gone public in criticising him.
But facts often do not matter in propaganda wars, and here we have a smear campaign meant to stop civil servants who do not sing along with the DA about its plans for a provincial police service.
This, to my mind, lies at the heart of the vicious campaign against Vearey, a police officer who has been part of investigations that led to the imprisonment of notorious gangsters such as George “Geweld” Thomas, broke the illegal gun-running racket driven by police office from Pretoria, and is feared by criminals. His integrity is unquestionable.
The DA, looking ahead at the next local government elections, wants to create a narrative of being ruthless
on crime and of succeeding in a manner that will embarrass the national government.
To give credence to this theory, the DA can do without an officer of Vearey’s calibre as head of SAPS in the Western Cape.
His independence and loyalty to the Constitution, which puts policing under the aegis of the national government, are major obstacles to their plans of a provincial police service, hence the DA’s opposition to the possibility of him being considered for the position. He is therefore a danger to the DA’s election plan, which, as it did in the national election in May, may focus a lot on crime.
He could also stop the DA making its private army, otherwise known as the metro police, and which falls under the City of Cape Town, more muscular. Presently the metro police, which has JP Smith as its political head, acts as if it is a law-enforcement instead of a by-law enforcement agency.
The Elsies River-raised Vearey is one of the officers who have applied for General Jula’s old job. He was informed he had been disqualified, apparently because he had left out essential documents in his application. This is untrue.
Not content with this failed sabotage, another underhand method was used against him last weekend. In that newspaper report, Nafiz Modack accused Vearey, the Head of Detectives in the province, of soliciting a R40000 bribe.
That report claimed that Modack had complained to the SAPS in April that Vearey and officers under his command were squeezing him for money.
He subsequently signed affidavits that purportedly back up an audio recording of a conversation between him, Vearey and an alleged intermediary, Mohamedaly Hanware.
Days after the report, Hanware emphatically denied to an online news site that the male with whom he had had the recorded conversation was Vearey.
According to him, the recording was simply a legitimate business discussion between him and a customer.
There appears to be coalescence between the interests of some criminal minds and certain DA politicians.
With his record, Vearey as provincial commissioner could make a huge contribution. It is imperative that this key appointment is finalised.