EMALAHLENI – Police Minister Bheki Cele may have to swallow his “harsh” words if the move by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to have him investigated is anything to go by.
When addressing residents of eMalahleni in KwaGuqa a few weeks ago, Cele said that police were going to come down hard on anyone found in defiance of the lockdown rules. Maybe you need a hand harsher than this, he warned. If you break the law, police will not smile at you. Police will have to be very harsh on you to enforce the law.
These words are no exception to “reckless” remarks the DA wants the minister to be investigated for. The minister has made a number of reckless comments in the past 21 days which have shocked the nation and created an environment in which SAPS may have felt emboldened to act outside of the law, DA shadow Minister of police, Andrew Whitfield told the Highveld Chronicle on Tuesday.
We will be referring the minister to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members interests to investigate Cele’s conduct during the national lockdown, Whitfield said.
Cele suggested that SAPS push people home and said that SAPS must deal with criminals harshly even going so far as to instruct SAPS: do not be nice to suspects.
Whitfield also said that they have already called for the President to remove Cele for his comments about the “rape of a woman at the hands of a police officer”.
On 12 April Cele said that law enforcement will come down harder on taverns that continue to supply alcohol during the lockdown. He says not only will liquor be confiscated and people arrested, but officers will also destroy the infrastructure he added.
“We believe Cele has not shown ethical leadership by encouraging SAPS to act outside the law. Section 4.1.1 states Members must abide by this principle, he said.
Advocate Jonas Sibanyoni of JB Sibanyoni Attorneys said that if the DA succeeds at the Joint Committee on Ethics in Parliament, it will mean that minister Cele will be compelled by the President to retract his words. The President will ask the minister to either withdraw or apologise to the public if his utterances are found to have caused law enforcers to act on the wrong side of the law,” Sibanyoni said.
