[ad_1]
By Tshego Lepule 
1 hour ago
Cape Town – As police struggle to contain rising crime in the province, Police Minister Bheki Cele attacked district attorney leaders Helen Zille and JP Smith.
Speaking at a crime rally on Saturday, Cele said, “Every time JP Smith gets drunk, I don’t know what kind of alcohol you drink,” which roughly translates to “Whenever JP Smith looks for a scapegoat, he looks at me me”. I don’t know what alcohol he drinks. “
Extortion rackets have rampant in the CBD and several municipalities, and a war of words has broken out between Cele and the city’s Smith over a dedicated anti-extortion task force.
A shooting in Gugulethu this week, in which eight people were killed, was also said to be linked to organized extortion unions.
Cele organized the imbizo at the Langa Sports Complex to interact with residents on crime and police concerns.
Residents rose to voice their complaints about the ineffectiveness of policing at the Langa police station to address gender-based violence, lack of support for neighborhood guards, lack of attention to rape victims and the growing tendency for gangs to harass citizens for protection money.
Residents in the area said they were required to pay between R10-50 per house, depending on the size of the family.
Local business owner Nombulelo Msizi said: “They knocked on my door and asked if I don’t want protection for a fee and I refused, but my fear is that next time it will not be an application. “
Local leaders and residents in Khayelitsha have raised the alarm about the number of protection unions that have multiplied in the area.
Both small business owners and ordinary citizens must pay a ransom.
On Saturday, Cele said there were no arrests yet for the Gugulethu affair, but that a plan had been drawn up to deal with extortion in the Western Cape and would be funded by the national, provincial and local government.
However, Cele did not mince words when she criticized Smith, who earlier in the week called the minister about the delay in implementing the promise to establish a special task force to deal with gangsters who target the owners of the businesses for protection fees.
Describing a meeting he had with Smith, Cele said that they had agreed to the operations and that if there were any problems, Smith should call him to work things out.
“We got out of there, walked to Long Street and agreed that this is how we would work. We agreed. Now last week, he talked about what he wanted. He has the disease of not wanting to listen and not doing things correctly. The guy is just sick of not wanting to do things (correctly) on behalf of the people, ”Cele said.
“We come here, we agree, we begin to put these things in order. He doesn’t pick up the phone and say how far he’s come with the things we agreed on. He only sees journalists and gets on top of me.
“I have a plan here. People are dying in Cape Town in (large) numbers, and we have to work on that. “
But Smith attacked Cele and said he tried to communicate with the minister through official channels.
“I contacted him; I sent him repeated messages that he didn’t have the decency to reply to. I also sent messages to Deputy Minister (Cassel) Mathale, who responded with a series of comments, ”Smith said.
“Our officials also tried to get progress reports through official channels and we never heard anything. It was only last week when we were considering initiating legal proceedings that we received a day’s notice of a meeting for all police stations that they were told to prioritize all extortion cases.
Cele said she saw Zille for the first time during a protest in Senekal where four people had been killed, but claimed she had never seen her protest or attend funerals in connection with the killings in the Western Cape.
“I have worked here for two years when she was premier and I have never been with her at funerals. Even at the funeral of young Stacey, who was six years old, he had never heard of her or seen her. I don’t care when she says that Cele should go, but I tell her one thing: look at people as people, take the color off your face and look at them as human beings. “
He was referring to six-year-old Stacey-Lee Adams, who was raped and murdered by her mother’s boyfriend in 2018.
Zille dismissed Cele’s statements: “I never said they should fire him. I was never interviewed. But if you ask me, I think so, you have to fire him. He can make as many exceptions as he wants. I have freedom of movement, but I am not interested (in his statements). “
Argus weekend
[ad_2]
