CARPING POINT: The SAPS budget for the Hawks’ Priority Crime Investigation unit for the 23/23 financial year is R2.247 billion according to Outa. VIP protection gets R3.378 billion. It’s an obscenity, writes Kevin Ritchie.
THERE has been much anger and disbelief after footage of two BMW M5s stopping on the N1 just past Fourways in Johannesburg showing six men getting out and beating up three people in another car went viral this week. The attackers were armed with assault rifles and handguns. The number plates on the SUVs showed these were unmarked police cars – the so-called blue light brigade, assigned to protect VIPs.
Thank goodness for social media. We needed every ounce of outrage to ensure that action had to be taken. Thanks to citizen power, we now know that these ‘protectors’ were assigned to Deputy President Paul Mashatile – although they weren’t protecting him at the time – apparently.
Three of them have been suspended, even though more got out of the cars on the video. Three of them will be charged. We don’t know why all six won’t be charged. We have no guarantee that this case will even make it to court for a successful prosecution. But it must. We all need to understand what happened and what provoked this attack, but we know that we have a problem.
Not all police are like these ‘officers’, just like some police officers during apartheid were not part of the Security Police, Vlakplaas, Koevoet or even the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit. The problem is, we can’t be sure who is who. And that’s fatal for a police service.
We can’t trust the cops. We can’t be sure that being told to pull over at any time, but especially at night, is a legitimate request or just a ruse for a shakedown – or worse. We can’t be sure that police won’t cite ‘national security’ as an excuse for excessive force – and then use it to avoid accountability or censure.
The fish rots from the head: The SAPS budget for the Hawks’ Priority Crime Investigation unit for the 23/23 financial year is R2.247 billion according to Outa. VIP protection gets R3.378 billion. It’s an obscenity.
The president should have bodyguards and maybe the deputy, but not the numbers they do. If anything, what happened in Poland recently proved exactly that. But what we do have is a political elite that is both increasingly out of touch and massively scared of the electorate. They are also vain. It’s a toxic trifecta that an unscrupulous police leadership obviously panders to.
They forget that this is South Africa. It is only a matter of time until these thugs, masquerading as police officers, get their comeuppance. Not everyone will get out of their cars when they are told to. Not everyone will take a beating. Not everyone will be an unarmed victim.
It’s a recipe for anarchy.
The only solution is to disband VIP protection in its current form. We all need to be protected, not just the politicians. And police officers have to be reminded that they are citizens first and foremost, just like us. No one is above the law – especially not the “VIPs” they are currently protecting at our expense – and to our detriment.
* Kevin Ritchie is a seasoned former newspaper editor and current media consultant. He writes the weekly Carping Point column.
