Cape Town - The police have spent more than R5.7 million on safety and security measures at political events such as conferences and rallies since April 2019.
This was revealed by Police Minister Bheki Cele while responding to DA MP Andrew Whitfield on whether the SAPS rendered security services to conferences and political party events, and what the full costs were.
In his response, Cele said: “It must be noted that the SAPS did not render security services per se, but rather their involvement was to ensure the safety and security of the events, i.e. policing services.”
He provided a list of events per province and specified the amount that was incurred.
KwaZulu-Natal did not feature on the list provided, while IFP events were not listed either, including those held in Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
The expenditure incurred in Limpopo, the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape was described as “No Cost: Line Function”.
Cele’s response shows that the police spent R4.6 million on the ANC, R899 986 on the EFF and R65 000 on the DA.
A total of R60 000 was spent on the uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association national conference and the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union in the Eastern Cape.
The costs for the 2019 Cosatu Workers rally and ANC rally in Northern Cape were labelled as “Line Function” as was the case with an Action SA event in the Eastern Cape held this year.
About R20 000 was spent in October 2019 on a Siyanqoba rally, which was not associated with any political party. Of the R4.6m spent on ANC events, R2.2m was incurred in Mpumalanga, R1.2m in Gauteng and R968 764 in North West.
A closer look at the list of ANC events shows that a total of R695 000 was spent on the ANC policy conference in July.
The ANC Siyanqoba rally, held in Gauteng in April 2019 and the ANC Sinqobile Victory rally, held in the same province the following month cost the SAPS R124 000 and R42 000 respectively.
The party’s Gauteng conference in June cost R328 556 and the second leg of the conference in July came at a cost of R30 000.
The party’s provincial conference, held three months in Limpopo, came at a cost of R70 016.
The party’s North West provincial conference came at a cost of R769 155 about a month ago, while the cost for the national executive committee conference at Rustenburg in 2019 was R111 805.
The cost for the Eastern Cape elective conference held in East London in May was labelled as “No Cost: Line Function”.
Cele’s response shows that of the three listed events, the final rally before the May 2019 election cost R41 000 and final rally for the 2021 municipal elections cost R24 000.
The cost for the DA’s call centre operation was labelled as “No Cost: Line function”.
The EFF conference held in Gauteng in December 2019 came to the tune of R459 000.
The party’s Tshela Thupa rally in May 2019 cost R70 000 and the manifesto launch four months later R35 spent more than000.
The EFF Freedom Day commemoration and Freedom Charter Day events cost R36 000 and R70 000 respectively while the July event in Free State cost R200 976.
Cape Times