ANC rubbishes Zille’s concerns on policing

THE provincial ANC has slammed Premier Helen Zille’s “rantings and blame game” that the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry recommendations were not implemented because of national government.

This comes after Zille announced on Friday at a press briefing that she would hand the “classified police response” and her written reply to national police commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, to the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and the City.

The O’Regan Commission of Inquiry, established three years ago, probed allegations of police inefficiency in Khayelitsha. It found that there were significant and serious police inefficiencies at the three police stations, and that there was a breakdown of relations between the community and the police, among other findings.

ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said: “This is once again Zille’s classic politics of deflection and blameshifting to national government when her provincial government and MEC for Com- munity Safety fail to deliver.”

Jacobs said the findings by the commission were neither new nor surprising, particularly the breakdown in community policing relations and support for neighbourhood watches.

Zille said the majority of recommendations, however, rely on the signing of a draft memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Community Safety Department and SAPS.

She said the MOA was forwarded to then-provincial police commissioner General Arno Lamoer on October 15 last year, covering visits by the Department of Community Safety to police stations, and arrangements for the department to inspect closed dockets, among other things.

“We understand that the longer we wait for a commitment to the recommendations, it is the people of Khayelitsha who continue to live with poor policing,” said Zille.

The police’s response, signed by Phiyega, said the commission highlighted what was already known and “buttress what the police had been talking about all along and dealing with”.