Cape Town - Community Safety MEC Dan Plato has received an SMS saying there is an “open contract” out on all Hard Livings gang leaders.
The tip-off came anonymously and reportedly stated that each hit was worth R20 000. It also said a police officer had been bought to provide protection for the hitmen.
Plato was unavailable for comment yesterday, but his spokesman, Greg Wagner, confirmed that he had received the SMS.
As Plato had an oversight function, and no operational control over the police, he would discuss the information with police senior management, Wagner said.
“It will be up to police to investigate and liaise with the prosecuting authority.
“The person who sent the SMS informed the minister that he had also sent it to other individuals,” Wagner said.
Wagner declined to say whose, or how many names appeared on the list. He would also not confirm that a R20 000 payment was attached to each hit.
Police refused even to confirm the existence of the SMS.
All evidence about gang violence was being investigated as a “very high priority”, was all spokesman Captain FC van Wyk would say.
Hanif Loonat, chairman of the provincial Community Policing Forum, says the SMS indicates the early stages of an internal war in the Hard Livings gang.
Last week, a parole board ruled that Hard Livings leader Rashied Staggie would be released on day parole in September and full parole in March next year.
Loonat predicted that a bloody struggle would erupt between the “old guard” – Hard Livings members loyal to Staggie – and the “new guard”, gangsters who have capitalised on the leadership vacuum left by Staggie’s imprisonment.
Last Friday, the Cape Argus reported on the murder in Manenberg of Donovan Uys, a known Hard Livings leader from Ocean View. Uys and his girlfriend Sandra Simpson were shot and killed on Thursday evening.
Police have not confirmed a link between the couple’s deaths and gang activity.
Asked to comment, Staggie’s wife, Rashieda, said that she knew nothing of the politics of the Hard Livings gang.
Cape Argus