THE DA in the Western Cape and in Gauteng went on a mass march to Minister Bheki Cele’s office on Tuesday, 6 September demanding that he must go.
Joining the march were DA leader in Gauteng Solly Msimanga, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube, Tshwane Mayor Randall Williams, DA national spokesman Cilliers Brink, DA deputy federal chairwoman Refiloe Nt’sekhe, as well as hundreds of party members.
Nt’sekhe said: “I want to ask Bheki Cele, have you ever been raped? Do you know someone in your family who has been raped? I know one, two, three and I’ve lost count,” she said.
Alan Winde said it wasn’t the police’s fault that they have a terribl
e minister.
“We are doing what we can with what we have. Crime is coming down in the Western Cape. In fact, something amazing happened in our latest crime stats. Nine out of 10 places where crime is going down are in Cape Town,” said Winde.
He said he sent Cele a simple request to help him fight crime, and he said no.
“Why would he say no to that? The only conclusion was that he doesn’t care about people’s safety and if he doesn’t, then we don’t want him,” he said.
Msimanga said they didn’t have a problem with the police, but their minister.
“To the police, we love you, and we are here because we want you to do your job. I want to say to the cops, you don’t have to be scared when we are here, the DA people are peaceful. We don’t go around fighting people. We are fighting with thugs, and we are saying to Bheki Cele that his time is over,” he said.
He said Cele spends money on unnecessary things.
“Go and ask Bheki Cele how much they spend on hotels, blue light cars and ANC conferences, yet when a woman is raped, they say they don’t have rape kits. When you call the police, the station is closed because they run spaza shop police stations like the one in Ga-Rankuwa, where they don’t work when there is no electricity,” he said.
He said the police don’t have resources.
“Some of the police don’t have vests, cars and guns. But the ministers and the president have a convoy of big cars.
If someone is raped, they wait at the police station not because the police can’t do their job but because there are no resources,” he said.
The DA said they were not there to hand over anything, but just to picket outside Cele’s office so that their voices were heard.
The police minister’s spokeswoman, Lirandzu Themba, said they were aware of the march and that they didn’t receive a memorandum.
