Billions for VIP protection while citizens are battered by crime
In the wake of a shocking spending splurge on additional VIP protection by the City of Johannesburg (COJ), Daily Maverick has learnt that a security risk assessment, which is a requirement for VIP protection to be provided, has not been carried out by the metro.
Additionally, the ever-increasing number of police officers being assigned to VIP services is having a negative impact on visible policing and crime fighting in Joburg and across the country.
Belinda Kayser-echeozonjoku, the Johannesburg DA caucus leader, dropped this bombshell during an interview with Daily Maverick in which she outlined why her party’s caucus voted against the exorbitant expanded protection services.
The revised policy, called the Protection and Security for VIP Risk Management System, falls under the Johannesburg public safety department, which is headed by member of the mayoral committee for public safety Mgcini Tshwaku of the EFF.
Speaking to Daily Maverick on Wednesday, 10 April, Kayser-echeozonjoku said: “The security risk assessment has not been done. We believe the COJ are currently frantically trying to do security assessments because they know that we are aware that they are in violation of the upper limits. It is unheard of that chairpersons of committees get councillor protection prior to a risk assessment getting done.”
More concerning, she said that members of the Gauteng cooperative governance and traditional affairs department raised this concern in January.
“We were in possession [of data] and saw something circulating in one of my groups. We have seen the letter that the Speaker of council had been informed that they are in violation of the upper limits.
“That letter was sent in January 2024 and their response was basically to come up with a policy to try to justify what they have already done in violation,” she explained.
Upper limits, as they are known, are the highest salary, allowance or benefits bands for the different members of municipal councils. Kayser-echeozonjoku said the COJ had adjusted the VIP spend, in the wake of a revenue decline from R83-billion to R76-billion, but did not show where the money was coming from.
She also stated that, though the VIP protection policy provides for the city manager to be protected, the DA, when it was the party in government, had only provided him with protection after there had been a safety risk. A group of people stormed into his office, which prompted an assessment that concluded he needed protection.
This is unlike the blanket VIP protection that exists today, she added.
The DA further contended that there is an existing councillor protection policy that covers councillors outside the executive. Kayser-echeozonjoku underlined the VIP protection the COJ has now amended, which gives some chairpersons VIP protection, whereas the multiparty government never allowed this because it went above the upper limits.
“We never provided protection to chairpersons of a committee. That is why there is councillor protection. The DA believes the money should be spent on service delivery. The city is collapsing and money should not be spent on protecting politicians,” she told Daily Maverick.
On a national level, the Hawks received R2.25-billion last year whereas VIP protection services received R3.76-billion, according to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa). Kayser-echeozonjoku said: “We as the DA were completely against that. You should be spending money on service delivery and crime prevention, and not on politicians that want to drive around protecting themselves from the very same people who had elected them.
“It is unacceptable that people like the Hawks don’t have the budget, yet politicians have bodyguards. Money should be spent on service delivery and not on politicians who want to look fancy and run away from the people who elected them.”
Anticrime activists as well as Outa and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) condemned the move.
Outa expressed concerns about VIP protection training and execution. Its spokesperson, Wayne Duvenage, referred to the viral video in which Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s VIP protection unit was captured punching and kicking four occupants of a car.
The ISS says it is disproportionate and cannot be justified that the Hawks received a much smaller portion of the budget compared with the blue light brigade.
The cost of high-level protection
Earlier this week, the ANC-EFF coalition in Joburg, together with minor parties, decided to spend R3-million a month on VIP protection. Politicians also received 40 cars from the fleet of the Joburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD). These cars are intended to be used for controlling traffic, enforcing bylaws and helping with crime prevention.
It has also come to light that the COJ is spending more on VIP bodyguards than any other city in South Africa, even as its finances are in trouble.
Executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda of the three-seat Al Jama-ah party will have 10 bodyguards, five per shift, from the JMPD and three cars in his convoy. Daily Maverick understands a total of eight cars from the JMPD fleet are allocated to him.
By comparison, Joburg’s former mayor, Mpho Phalatse, had eight bodyguards, four per shift, and Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-lewis also has four per shift.
This expenditure by the COJ occurs despite strong opposition from the DA and in the context of Joburg’s continuing water shortages, City Power’s electricity cuts – frequently worse than Eskom’s – and the city’s high crime rate.
Outrage
Those vehicles and personnel are needed on the streets to fight crime. The 2023 third-quarter crime statistics show that Gauteng districts fill all but one of the top 12 spots for truck hijackings (number one belongs to Swartkops in the Nelson Mandela District, Eastern Cape).
Upon learning about the budget for VIP protection services, Imraahn Mukaddam, an anticrime activist and spokesperson for the Elsies River Community Policing Forum in Cape Town, was outraged.
“I think the most striking reality when you look at the enormous amount that’s being spent on VIP protection is the value they place on the lives of the politicians who are supposed to make our lives better, as opposed to the average citizen,” Mukaddam told Daily Maverick. “We have to consider whether our lives as ordinary citizens are worth so little that so much money can be spent on VIP protection.”
According to Mukaddam, volunteer
neighbourhood watch members patrol the gang-ridden streets of Elsies River, one of the crime hotspots in the Western Cape, late at night and early in the morning to ensure the community’s safety. Some of the members, he added, were killed or injured be beneficial when venturing out on dangerous streets.
“We are doing it as volunteers with no expectation of remuneration, but we are also putting ourselves at risk. It demonstrates where the priorities lie from our perspective as community crime-fighters. We are in the same space but we are not recognised, and there is no cover for us,” he emphasised.
Adding his voice, anticrime activist Yusuf Abramjee stated that citizens come first, adding: “Yes,
[VIPS] (SAPS) and rooting out officers who collude with gangsters.
Loonat told Daily Maverick that if some of the billions spent on VIP protection were directed to the underresourced SAPS and Hawks, it would go a long way towards combating crime. “My concern is that we must eradicate corruption in the police force. The more new recruits join SAPS, the more corrupt officers we produce, because corrupt old guys influence the new lot and they rise to station level.
“I’ve seen how the new kids on the block in policing are being encouraged into corruption,” he said. 42.4%, and the 10111 call centres had only 40.5% of the proper staffing requirements.
Protection based on information
Willem Els, senior training coordinator at the ISS, called the Coj’s allocation of R3-million a month to VIP services “extremely excessive”.
“Whenever one plans and works on VIP protection, you should work on intelligence-informed analysis and that should inform your level of protection.
“If a minister, for example, has to travel to Bela-bela, then the team has to sit the day before, gather all intelligence on the route, do a risk analysis and, based on that analysis, they have to adapt the security level of the convoys,” he said.
Els said this is not happening because