President Cyril Ramaphosa faces potentially the toughest week of his political career as MPs converge on Cape Town on Tuesday to vote on his future.
CAPE TOWN – He went on a charm offensive on the Cape Flats over the weekend, but President Cyril Ramaphosa will know his political career hangs in the balance as MPs converge at City Hall on Tuesday to vote on his future.
This as the ANC’s integrity commission is set to submit a much-anticipated report on whether Ramaphosa brought the party into disrepute in the fallout over Phala Phala.
The commission deferred its report – which it was supposed to release on Friday – to the party’s national elective conference, which sits from Thursday.
Asked about the scandal during his two-day tour, Ramaphosa told reporters there was “no issue” and no crisis”.
He said the matter would be dealt with at the conference this week.
NEC member Dr Zweli Mkhize has mounted a challenge against Ramaphosa for the presidency and spent last week addressing the media.
The scandal hangs like an albatross around Ramaphosa’s neck after a Parliament-appointed independent panel found he may have violated the Constitution. Ramaphosa is now taking the report on review to the Constitutional Court.
Ramaphosa was all smiles over the weekend as he addressed branches in Hanover Park and Khayelitsha, where he accused his political opponents of looting public funds.
He asked branches to send reliable delegates to the elective conference, and assured the coloured voting bloc in Hanover Park that they haven’t been neglected.
He told Khayelitsha residents that arrests were being made in the fight against corruption.
Women’s Network’s Carol Peters, in Hanover Park, told him gender-based violence had reached pandemic proportions. Ramaphosa told her that the government was trying to find solutions.
MP Faiez Jacobs told Ramaphosa that his visit was “historic” as it reassured the Cape Flats community that he hadn’t “forgotten” them.
Ramaphosa told Hanover Park residents that reinforced Community Police Forums (CPF) would play a vital role in rooting out corrupt cops in the Western Cape, but his statement comes as the Province and the City are accused of scaling-back support for the crime-fighting structures.
Ramaphosa said he was concerned by reports that Western Cape gangsters had infiltrated the provincial police.
In October, Western Cape High Court Judge Daniel Thulare made the shocking revelation that senior SAPS officers were colluding with gangs.
Ramaphosa said CPFs, “where they’ve been properly set up, are working effectively to root out crime, and would be effective in rooting our dirty cops across the province”.
However, Tygerberg CPF cluster chairperson Sean McCleland and Brackenfell CPF chairperson Werner Victor recently said the City and the Province were scaling back support for CPFs, with council showing more support for neighbourhood watches.
Mitchells Plain CPF chairperson Norman Jantjies backed their claim.
McCleland said the Police Oversight and Community Safety Department had stripped R5,000 in annual funding from each CPF in the province, while pumping R6 million in funding for neighbourhood watches.
He recently said the city and provincial government appeared to be pitting the neighbourhood watches against the CPFs.
Jantjies echoed both Ramaphosa and McCleland. He said the provincial government stopped funding social crime-prevention efforts 10 years ago.
Jantjies said: “We need intervention supported by CPF and driven and funded by the province and the city.”
He said he agreed with Ramaphosa, but without backing, CPFs couldn’t provide oversight to police.
Citing a lack of funding from the Department of Community Safety (Docs), the Brackenfell CPF earlier this year sold burgers and chips to raise funds to resource their crime-fighting efforts.
Ramaphosa said the crime element in police in the province “will be rooted out”.
He said there were “marauding gangs” operating in Cape Town and Joburg, “but their space is going to be very small”.
Docs MEC Reagen Allen said the Province supported CPFs with funding in the Expanded Partnership Programme until March 2021.
“This funding model was used for nine years. CPFs severely criticised this funding model in all platforms as it did not differentiate between CPFs. All CPFs qualified for the same amount if they reported on their functionality to the department.”
Allen said CPFs requested project funding so that they could run projects. Only the Philippi CPF was in dysfunction, he said.
“There is uncertainty of the functionality of the remaining CPF, which is the Philippi CPF (precinct includes Hanover Park), as those elected had criminal records.
“This is a matter SAPS is attending to,” Allen said.
He said 102 CPFs applied for funding, of which 99 received it.
Allen said McCleland’s cluster applied for project funding with the Bellville CPF, which he chairs, also applying successfully, but they still needed to submit the transfer payment agreement to the department in order to get payment.
“He has been contacted repeatedly by the officials. He does not respond/ answer the call.”
Allen said Ramaphosa’s comments on police were “disingenuous and an attempt to deflect responsibility from himself and the National Minister of Police (Bheki Cele) in how they’re continuing to fail SAPS members by not providing the required resources”.
He said if Ramaphosa “exchanged some of the foreign currency (from the Phala Phala theft) and donated it to SAPS, it could help to ensure that they were better resourced”.
