Investigate Clifton beach incident

Dear public protector,

I’m writing this letter to you to request an investigation into an incident that occurred on Cape Town’s 4th Beach on the night of December 23, 2018.

On that evening, my wife, family, friends and I were on the beach, as we’ve been doing for the past five years. Our December picnic was our sixth one in a row.

That evening two men, purporting to be members of the SAPS, arrived at this formerly whitesonly beach to enforce a curfew. We refused to leave and asked them to explain what they were doing.

They claimed to be enforcing a City of Cape Town by-law.

We informed them that there was no such by-law and that it was our constitutional right to be on that beach. They admitted to us that they were not law enforcement officers, but in fact were employees of security company PPA.

That incident has created lots of publicity with the company and the City of Cape Town attacking my integrity by claiming that I was lying about the incident and that my friends and I were on the beach to provoke an incident for political gain.

I’m hereby asking you to investigate the incident to establish:

Whether PPA was acting with the permission of the City of Cape Town or some councillors, such as Mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith;

If any ratepayers and residents association has paid for its services;

If PPA is a financial contributor to the DA;

If PPA is registered as a security company in compliance with legislation;

Who owns PPA;

If PPA has done or is doing other work for the City of Cape Town, and if so whether such work was put out in tender, and if so whether the appropriate steps were taken in securing PPA’s services;

If DA leader Mmusi Maimane knew about the work PPA was doing and if he had a hand in “terminating” the company’s contract with the City; and if councillor JP Smith, mayor Plato and any other City of Cape Town councillor or employee have links with PPA.