Cape Town - Police Minister Bheki Cele has vowed never to consider decentralising policing in order to allow Black people in the Western Cape to be given over to people who do not care about them.
Cele said this week the DA-led City of Cape Town had failed to “unleash” LEAP officers in Nyanga and Delft despite the high crime rates there, yet it was quick to deploy more officers in the CBD when crime statistics shot up.
“Under no circumstances. I will never consider doing that,” he said during a question and answer session in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
Cele said when crime statistics increased in the CBD, the metro immediately deployed 100 more LEAP officers.
“They have never been unleashed in Nyanga. They have never been unleashed in Delft, (despite) all statistics from there,” he said.
He said the DA, as well as the City of Cape Town and Western Cape government had been at each other’s throats over the decentralisation of policing functions.
The DA had used decentralisation as its campaign ticket in both the 2019 general elections and the 2021 municipal elections.
Last September, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde took the matter to the National Council of Provinces, where he asked that their proposal be tried, and pleaded with Cele that if it worked the minister would take the kudos, and if it failed, he would take the blame. Cele at the time said he was not interested in kudos.
The matter returned to the National Assembly on Wednesday when DA MP Andrew Whitfield asked whether Cele had commissioned any studies into the decentralisation of policing services, and whether he intended to commission any such studies.
Cele said the Constitution provided that the SAPS national commissioner was responsible for exercising control over managing SAPS in accordance with national policy.
“There is no need identified at the present moment for the alternative approach for the restructuring of the SAPS,” Cele said.
In a follow-up question, Whitfield repeatedly claimed that policing could not be decentralised because it required constitutional amendment.
He cited a section that empowered him to devolve police powers to other spheres of government.
Whitfield charged that Cele ignored that Western Cape’s LEAP led to the decline in murders by 42% in Mitchells Plain and Nyanga was no longer a murder capital.
He claimed that deployment of 100 more LEAP officers to the CBD had reduced theft out of vehicles and robbery by 50% in just one week.
Whitfield added that President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke glowingly of efforts against crime by the City of Cape Town and was impressed by LEAP.
Cele scoffed at Whitfield’s statements saying things were being repeated to mislead South Africans.
He said the Constitution was clear that the minister determines national policy after consulting provinces.
Cele accused the Western Cape government of being delinquent when it came to the Constitution.
He said the metros were supposed to have metro police working under direction of the SAPS commissioner.
“In this province they have created a parallel structure to the Constitution called LEAP. That structure does not report to the national commissioner and it is not overseen by the (Police) Secretariat and Independent Police Investigative Directorate.”
Cele also said the Western Cape government should raise the matter (at) MinMEC, a forum of the police minister and safety MECs
“Please, from now on, start to follow the Constitution of the land. They defy the Constitution and demand the minister to follow them in defying the Constitution,” he said.
Cape Times