By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Police Minister Bheki Cele acknowledged that the July civil unrest could have been handled better by law enforcement officials.
Cele testified on Friday before the South African Human Rights Commission hearings looking into the July unrest.
He shifted the blame for the lack of intelligence gathered prior to and during the riots – and the thoroughly inadequate response from the police – to the feet of national commissioner Khehla Sitole, saying that he had to work with provincial commissioners in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng to ensure the unrest was brought under control as he was unable to contact Sitole.
“I don’t remember seeing the national commissioner during [all of the days of unrest]…. I heard he said I was trying to find him in the wrong places… he should have tried to be in the right places. The right places are where things were happening, is where people were dying, is where looting was taking place,” Cele told the South African Human Rights Commission.
Cele submitted a statement to the SAHRC last week, but did not read from it on Friday, choosing to instead speak off the cuff. His statement, however, was used on Tuesday by the commission’s evidence leaders to question Sitole about several allegations made by the minister.
When Sitole was asked about Cele saying in his statement that he was unable to contact him during the unrest, the national commissioner responded that the minister was “probably looking in the wrong place”.
Cele also told commissioners Andre Gaum, Chris Nissen and Philile Ntuli that when he was commissioner, he had specifically taken Sitole from a provincial level to work with him on a national level because he had been impressed by Sitole’s social cohesion programmes within the service particularly his work with young people. “You can give the man a Bell’s on that one, no doubt at all…”said the minister.
It was the discord within SAPS crime intelligence that appears to have strained the relationship and, according to Cele, left the minister without having received any kind of report or early warning about the riots.
This was a breach of statutory obligations, Cele wrote in his statement, where he also said that SAPS was exposed as being “inadequate” because of a “lack of proactive intelligence and crime intelligence’s failure to forewarn”.
The SAPS crime intelligence division was seriously underfunded at the time of the unrest, with Cele not having signed off on its just over R500-million budget. He told the commission that the lack of intelligence and his refusal to sign “may have caused that there were not enough capabilities”.
Cele also made a startling allegation about Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, and her dealings with one of the so-called instigators of the July violence, Zamaswazi Majozi, owner of the Twitter handle Sphithiphithi Evaluator.
He said that Majozi was “taking [me] to court” for loss of income and other reasons. “She has also taken the matter to the Public Protector. We don’t think it is [appropriate] for the Public Protector to work on a matter that is still in court,” he said.
“This Spithiphiti has been in communication on political matters with the Public Protector about some members, they are in Cabinet. The Public Protector goes to the investigators to get the docket, to [investigate the docket], a hot docket that is in court.”
The police refused the Public Protector, according to Cele, and said that she would have to make an application for it as they could not hand her an active docket. The head of the Hawks, Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya, was dealing with the matter, said Cele.
Meanwhile the Office of the Public Protector has denied claims by Cele that Mkhwebane had made attempts to take the docket of one of the people arrested for the July unrest from the investigators.
“It’s untrue that we requested the docket. We’re investigating whether the Hawks followed due process and complied with applicable regulatory framework, including court orders when effecting search, seizure, arrest and detention. It’s alleged in a complaint that they abused their power.
“We asked for, inter alia, applicable standing orders, regulations, instructions, Occurrence Book entries, body receipt, court orders, search warrant copies etc, not evidence in the possession of the Hawks, as alleged and peddled. We can’t determine the alleged abuse without these,” said Mkhwebane’s office.
The SAHRC sessions in Durban closed on Friday and will continue in Gauteng in February.