Madam Zille’s conspiracy theories preposterous
SO AGAIN Madam Premier, Helen Zille, had a “revelation” and declares that the national government of the ANC is “conspiring” with unknown forces in the Western Cape to increase crime levels in the province so that the DA as government looks incompetent.
This massive “operation” is led by the Minister of Police, the National Commissioner of Police and several high ranking members of government, all in an attempt to capture the Western Cape from the DA for the ANC! Has the Premier gone mad, we have to ask?!
She is known for her outlandish statements and tantrums in government, but this latest attempt to deflect responsibility from her own government is preposterous.
In her online government writings she affirms this theory to the most absurd conclusions. But it is all her attempts to malign the ANC in this debate on crime and the responsibility of her government. Sadly she excludes the most important element in the fight against crime in the Western Cape, namely the communities that bear the brunt of violent crime in our society. In her entire flight of fancy she scantly reflects their role as partners.
She takes all on a long journey of what is oversight over the police; she has no powers to appoint and command, and the budgets for all these rest with the national commissioner of police and, hence, her hands are tied! What a cop-out, if ever I have seen one. The problem with the DA under Zille is she wants all the glory without dirtying her hands and engaging communities, because this she cannot confront as her arrogance will always get the better of her – especially when confronted with real service delivery issues that her governments fails at.
When the ANC ran government in the Western Cape we managed extremely well in the fight against crime, with the limitation of the current legis- lation. But, the one thing we knew well and do well is mobilisation of our communities on issues that confront them on a daily basis. We called our programme Bambanani Against Crime. This engulfed communities across the province, where young and old, male and female, coloured and African, stood side by side in supporting the police to protect communities. On the other side we had the High Flyers Project, a joint task across the province of all criminal justice agencies (like SAPS, DDP, Sars, AFU, Department of Home Affairs, Department of Correctional Services), planning operations of arrest, asset seizure, preservation orders, tax reviews, bail denial and, ultimately, convictions. And the crime rate came down as is evident in the police’s annual report.
These programmes were the backbone of the ANC government’s fight against crime. And sadly, what did Helen Zille do when she became Premier in 2009? She shut down all these programmes. She demobilised thousands of Bambanani volunteers across the Western Cape in an arrogant attempt to destroy any legacy of the ANC. A programme that took the ANC almost five years to create and build trust in communities, she single-handedly closed within two months of her becoming Premier. And the crime rate shot up!
The fact is that Zille and the DA need to politicise everything in government in order to remain relevant as an opposition. So, hence, when she established the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry it was another attempt to politicise the fight against crime, in a community that is vulnerable and susceptible – but Zille flamed the fuels of division all in an attempt to score political points against the ANC and members of the police. To Zille the consequences are immaterial, the fallouts of the commission and the distrust between communities and the police are not her problem… It’s the national government which must pick up the pieces after she acted like a bulldozer in a China shop.
Now Zille wants the national government to sign a memorandum of understanding (inter-governmental contract) between the police and the DA government in the Cape. What an absurd and irrational idea!
Why, when the Police Act clearly defines the roles of the police and its tasks. Imagine if every stakeholder is unhappy and therefore an MOU must be entered into between the parties for specific interests to be preserved... What a joke.
Clearly Zille has no inclination of government and its mandates. Once again the consequences of her actions are irrelevant. She wants power, but not the responsibility that comes with power!
On the issue of police budgets and expenditure, once again Zille shows her ignorance in understanding how governments work. Running government budgets is not like writing a shopping list to buy groceries! It’s a bit more complex, Madam Premier... If Zille had taken the time and effort to read the following documents from National Treasury before penning her disparaging opinion piece she would have learnt a bit about financial planning in government:
The 2005 Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
The 2004 Treasury Guideline: Medium Term Expenditure Framework.
The 2004 Treasury Guidelines of Estimated National Expenditure.
Minister Trevor Manuel’s Budget Speech of 2005, where he forecasts the following over three years (2005 - 2008) (a) R4.2 billion for improving police salaries and (b) R600 million for increasing police numbers.
Now Zille must be reminded that the ANC in government in 2004 had several engagements with the Treasury and made the case for greater expenditure on police numbers and police reservists on good fiscal grounds and not politics.
The sad side of Zille’s opinionated pieces these days is that they are always outward looking; everyone else is wrong, except the DA. There is no inward looking to self review its own failures and to correct what it can, namely:
To fight crime in the Western Cape by taking communities along with them.
By fighting racism in the Western Cape by telling white South Africans that Africans and coloured people are part of the Western Cape.
To expel racists in the DA like Diane Kohler Barnard.
To prioritise service delivery to poor African and coloured communities – especially in the City of Cape Town.
To feel empathy for farmworkers and not only farm owners.
Zille has created a government in this province that cares little for the working person in the Western Cape.
Her single-mindedness and arrogance has been the bane of the alienation of African people from the DA. It’s time for the DA to consider its options for their Madam. Already we have seen DA bigwigs start to dissent and not fully support Zille’s paranoid conspiracy theories… Marius Fransman