DA guns for Police Minister in #CeleMustFall petition

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has launched a #CeleMustFall petition to urge President Cyril Ramaphosa to sack Police Minister Bheki Cele.

The DA tabled a motion of no confidence against Cele and his cabinet colleagues in March this year. The party listed a number of reasons for his dismissal including his endorsement of the Firearms Control Amendment Bill. According to the DA, the Bill made gun ownership of self-defence illegal.

Other reasons to sack the Minister is the massive DNA backlog; failure to fully implement the South African Police Services’ (SAPS) 2019 rural safety strategy and; his refusal to sign off on the secret service budget in December 2020.

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The refusal of signing the service budget is a key reason for the chaos at Crime Intelligence and their inability to anticipate the July 2021 unrest, DA shadow minister of police Andrew Whitfield.

CELE CONTINUES TO FAIL IN PROTECTING SOUTH AFRICANS

Whitfield has accused the Minister of failing South Africans as displayed when he yelled at Action Society’s Ian Cameron on his many failures.

Instead of answering concerns of Gugulethu residents, Cele instead told Cameron to “shut up” and had police officers remove him from the premises.

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But despite overwhelming evidence of Cele’s unsuitability to hold office, Ramaphosa has not reprimanded the Police Minister, said Whitfield.

“Minister Cele has done nothing to address the critical shortcomings of SAPS which have contributed to increased violent crime with the last quarter crime statistics reporting that 67 people are murdered, 153 are raped and 364 violent robberies occur a day,” Whitfield said.

POLICE MINISTER UNDER FIRE IN THE PAST YEAR

The Police Minister has been under fire in the past year. He was blamed for failing to prevent the violent July unrest last year, which left scores of businesses looted, property damaged and people killed.

In the recent weeks, Cele has been questioned about crime protection after the brutal killing of 16 people who were shot at a tavern in Soweto. The same weekend, two people were shot dead at a tavern in Katlehong and a further four were killed during a shooting in Pietermaritzburg.

Action Society’s Ian Cameron says they support any petition to remove Cele. But despite his removal, SAPS will not immediately be fixed.

“There are a lot of other things that need to be done to restore parts of SAPS. I don’t think we realise how much the damage has been done in SAPS. We will support any petition of this kind. We are also petitioning Parliament for the removal of Cele. We hope it’s a start to real change regarding the state of policing in South Africa,” Cameron told The South African.