Ladies and gentlemen of the media,
Thank you for joining us today.
I have a few announcements to make. These relate to changes to the National Executive of government, the Commission of Inquiry into the Strategic Defence Procurement Packages and the matter relating to the National Police Commissioner.
I have decided to make the following changes to the National Executive.
1. Ms Dina Pule, currently the Deputy Minister for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, has been appointed Minister of Communications.
2. Mr Thembelani “Thulas” Nxesi, the Deputy Minister for Rural Development and Land Reform, will become the new Minister of Public Works. The Department will no longer have a Deputy Minister.
3. Minister Richard Baloyi, the Minister of Public Service and Administration, has been appointed Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
4. Mr Roy Padayachie, the Minister of Communications, is to take over the Public Service and Administration portfolio.
5. Mr Obed Bapela, the Deputy Minister of Communications, has been appointed Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation.
6. Ms Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, the Deputy Minister of Public Works, will be the Deputy Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disability.
7. Mr S. Lechesa Tsenoli, chairperson of the portfolio committee on cooperative governance and traditional affairs, has been appointed as Deputy Minister for Rural Development and Land Reform.
8. ANC Member of Parliament, Ms Thembisa Stella Ndabeni, will become the Deputy Minister of Communications.
I wish all the new Ministers and Deputy Ministers well in their portfolios.
We also extend our gratitude to the Ministers and Deputy Ministers who have vacated their portfolios for their contribution to building a better life for all.
Ladies and gentlemen,
On the 15th of September I announced that I would, in terms of section 84 (2) (f) of the Constitution, appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in the Strategic Defence Procurement Packages, generally known as the “arms deal”.
I have appointed the Commission. The esteemed members are as follows;
1. Honourable Mr Justice Willie Seriti, Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
2. Honourable Mr Justice Willem van der Merwe, Deputy Judge President of the North Gauteng High Court.
3. Honourable Mr Justice Francis Legodi, Judge of the North Gauteng High Court.
Mr Justice Seriti will chair the Commission, which is expected to complete its work within two years.
We wish Mr Justice Seriti and his team well in the execution of this important task.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Section 9 (1) read with section 8 (1) to (8) empowers the President to establish a Board of Inquiry into allegations of misconduct against the National Police Commissioner, and make findings and recommendations as contemplated in section 8(6)(b).
In August, I informed the National Commissioner, General Bheki Cele, of my intention to institute a Board of Inquiry to look into the allegations of misconduct, in relation to the procurement of office accommodation for the South African Police Service, as per the findings and recommendations of the Public Protector.
I have established the Board of Inquiry. The esteemed members are as follows;
• Ms Justice Yvonne Mokgoro (retired).
• Advocate Terry Motau (SC).
• Advocate Anthea Platt.
Ms Justice Mokgoro will chair the Board of Inquiry.
I have also decided to suspend the National Commissioner from duty with immediate effect, pending the outcome of the inquiry, in terms of section 8 (3) (a) read with Section 9 (1) of the South African Police Service Act.
He will, during the period of suspension, be entitled to his full salary, allowances, privileges and benefits, in terms of Section 8(3)(b) of the Act.
Major General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi will act as National Commissioner until further notice.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I thank you.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Cele-fired-Zumas-statement-20111024#.TqV5OM6Mqpx.facebook
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Showing posts with label General Bheki Cele. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Bheki Cele. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Police Commissioner Cele Bombed?
The Sunday Independent newspaper stood by its report that national police chief General Bheki Cele had been fired, editor Makhudu Sefara said on Monday.
“I don't know what people know about news stories, but from where we sit, the information has been sourced properly... it has been corroborated by more than two sources,” he said.
The newspaper reported on Sunday that Cele had been axed and asked to take up a diplomatic post in Canada, and that he was expected to vacate his office by November 30.
The dismissal was reportedly the result of a report, by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, which implicated him in controversial lease deals for buildings in Durban and Pretoria.
Madonsela found Cele had been involved in improper conduct and maladministration.
Police rejected the report on Monday, and said it was the product of incompetence and corruption.
“The SA Police Service (SAPS) would like to assure the South African public that General Cele is very much entrenched in his position as national commissioner,” Cele's spokeswoman Major-General Nonkululeko Mbatha said.
“No amount of dirty tricks... will ever destabilise the organisation.”
She said a disinformation campaign against Cele was being run by the “criminal underworld” with assistance from “their friends in the media”.
The newspaper report did not quote any documents or sources to validate its claims, she said.
A letter was being sent to the newspaper requesting an internal investigation
“The SAPS will be asking the newspaper proprietors to release the findings of their investigation within 21 days,” Mbatha said.
Sefara said the newspaper would consider the request.
“A basis for the investigation has not been established. If they ( the police) wish to request an investigation, we will listen and make a decision if we think there is sufficient basis for it,” the editor said.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Cele Cop Shop Shambles
October 14 2011
Embattled national police commissioner General Bheki Cele’s judgment was questioned on Thursday as he was chastised by the chairwoman of Parliament’s police portfolio committee for the poor state of police stations - which she insisted was directly related to the choice of managers and a lack of oversight by his department.
Drawing from the committee’s experiences during oversight visits to police stations around the country, chairwoman Sindi Chikunga said if she were commissioner for a day, “all SAPS officers would be dismissed immediately”.
“It makes you not able to sleep at night… Those getting promotions, national commissioner, where do you get these people from; these people you are promoting, where do you get them from?” she asked.
In one instance, on a visit to the Pretoria Central police station, a stone’s throw from the SAPS headquarters, the committee found that 11 accused who were supposed to be in the holding cells could not be accounted for, despite the register’s having been checked and signed.
At a police station in Gauteng, the committee found 3 500 firearm licences lying in a box, despite the huge backlogs which frustrated the public.
Officers at police stations often could not account for what work they did for the day. Firearm controls were practically non-existent. Belts, shoelaces and knives, among other suspect items, were found inside filthy cells – which the committee had to instruct the officers to clean, said Chikunga.
In the run-up to the World Cup last year, after having visited a police station in Mbombela, Chikunga said the committee had had to be “strategic” in its reports so as not to cast a bad light on the city by “making noise” about the state of the police stations.
“National police commissioner, I’ll ask again, why is it that this is found by politicians?
“How can it be that it takes politicians to make things correct? For goodness sake, it cannot be. We are politicians… not managers. It’s a bad habit of the SAPS to sign but not check,” said Chikunga.
Cele said “we are working to change what would have been tradition” by “visiting provinces and stations”, among other initiatives. He said the SAPS was now employing the principle of “not listening but seeing”.
The SAPS was making great strides in rural policing, with a focus not only on farmers but also the farmworkers. And the decrease in car hijacking was attributed to hard work by officers and the emphasis on visible policing, especially in Joburg, Pretoria and Durban, said Cele. “At no other stage has car hijacking been this low. We are not stolen cars collectors; we must arrest car thieves.”
Crowd control remained a “sensitive area”, and while police had to take responsibility to respect and uphold the right of protesters, the onus also rested on the organisers.
He said police had to work within the confines of the law and “can’t be trigger happy”, but that, as the management of the SAPS, they could not retreat from encouraging the police to protect themselves when going up against criminals.
“They don’t carry broomsticks and they don’t carry feather dusters – they carry serious weapons. We are not going to tell them (police officers) to go and kiss and hug them. They must work decisively,” he said.
Poor firearm control and the issues of the licensing of firearms and the number of escapes from police custody were of great concern to the committee.
The SAPS reported on Thursday that there were 468 escapes from police custody in the past financial year, while 191 detainees were unaccounted for.
The commissioner, who faces an inquiry into his conduct after the public protector found against him in the lease saga, said that with regard to firearm control there was a “major war point between us and the management of stations – it’s a big war”.
In an attempt to deal with the problem, the SAPS intended to establish “firearm banks”.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
SOUTH AFRICA’S DEADLY DISASTER
The continuing saga of South Africa’s dwindling gun owners provides a case study of what gun-banners want to do in the United StatesAmerica's 1st
Freedom, March 2010
By Dave Kopel
When not banning guns outright, the gun prohibition lobbies—both in the United States and abroad—promote gun owner licensing as a “reasonable” and “sensible” regulation. Yet, the terrible experience of South African gun owners shows how purportedly “reasonable” licensing can be used to devastate a culture of responsible gun ownership.
Most of what has been done to South African gun owners is already being pushed in the United States: gun rationing; targeting the poor and people of color; making gun ownership unaffordable; confiscating guns without compensation; and implementing a licensing system that can be deliberately abused in order to stop good people from owning guns.
Add to this list a government that plays a leading role in arming violent criminals, and you have the deadly disaster of today’s South Africa.
The mechanism for gun rights destruction was the Firearms Control Act (FCA), passed in 2000 by the South African Parliament. The key force behind the bill was Gun Free South Africa, one of the many global gun ban lobbies funded by George Soros.
The governments of Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and New Zealand provided advice on the draft law, as did Wendy Cukier, head of Canada’s gun prohibition lobby.
South Africa has a long tradition of shooting sports. The first record of an organized sporting event there was the “parrot shoot,” an annual event that began in Oct. 1686. Borrowing from a European tradition in village fairs, Dutch settlers shot at clay or wooden replicas of
birds, known as “papegaij.”
Unfortunately, South Africa developed a comprehensive series of racial caste laws, formalized in 1948 as “apartheid.” Whites had the most rights, followed by “coloureds” (immigrants from Asia), with blacks at the very bottom.
One of the first steps in dismantling this evil system was led by South African gun owners. In 1984, the apartheid government proposed limiting the number and types of firearms that individuals could own. Anew citizen organization, the South African Gunowners’ Association (SAGA, www.saga.org.za), was created to fight for gun owner rights—and they defeated
the government plan.
SAGA did not stop there. The group began pushing to fix the gun laws so that non-whites would have the same rights as whites. SAGA won this fight in Parliament. However, many police administrators abused their powers and thwarted gun license applications by blacks.
Finally, in 1994, apartheid came to a long-overdue end when South Africa held its first multiracial free elections.
Control of the government passed to the African National Congress (ANC), which was fighting a revolutionary war for much of the century. Since then, South Africa has been ruled by the ANC, and year by year the ANC comes more and more to resemble the former apartheid regime.
Like the apartheid regime, the ANC props up a network of allied dictatorships in southern Africa. Without the support of the ANC, Zimbabwe’s genocidal tyrant, Robert Mugabe, would not still be in power.
Like the apartheid regime, the ANC controls the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s radio and television stations, keeping them in conformity with ruling party ideology, and using the license system to exclude alternative viewpoints.
At the United Nations, the South African delegation protects its tyrannical allies (such as Mugabe and the military junta in Burma) by protesting against outside interference with governments that abuse human rights. The current South African delegation’s arguments are nearly identical to the arguments that the apartheid regime once used when it insisted that foreigners should remain silent about oppression in South Africa.
And like the apartheid regime, the ANC is an enemy of gun owner rights in general, and of black gun owners in particular.
The Firearms Control Act of 2000 rationed gun ownership—no more than one self-defense gun per person and no more than four guns total. The lifetime limit on gun ownership is the logical extension of current efforts by American anti-gun lobbies to ration firearms with
“one-handgun-per-month” laws.
All guns must also be registered—the better to enforce the ownership caps.
Semi-automatic long guns are not allowed, except for farmers and a few other special categories. The lone self-defense gun must be a handgun or a manually operated shotgun.
At its outset, about a third of gun owners had more guns than the FCA allowed, so they were required to sell the guns or surrender them to the government. Section 137 of the FCA expressly promised that compensation would be paid to people who surrendered their excess guns—either
because they had “too many,” or because they were enticed by one of the government’s voluntary gun surrender programs.
More than 600,000 guns have been given to the government, yet the government has yet to pay a penny. In 2005, National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi declared, “You can’t be paid for doing away with an evil thing.”
The new licensing system went into effect in 2004, applying immediately to new applicants. People who had licenses under the old system (the former Arms and Ammunition Act were divided into groups based on date of birth, and required to apply for new licenses starting in 2005. The final set of applications was due on June 30, 2009.
To obtain a gun license in South Africa, one must pass a written “competency test.” The South African constitution recognizes 11 official languages, but the test is only given in two of them, Afrikaans and English. Imagine if your gun ownership rights depended on passing a written test
in a language you could not read!
Applicants are not issued licenses if they are deemed to be at risk of becoming violent. As enforced in South Africa, this could simply mean that a person was divorced, separated or fired within the past two years.
Processing of applications is very slow. For example, of the applications submitted in 2006, only
about a quarter have been fully processed.
Licenses are valid for two, five or 10 years, depending on the legal category of the license, so keeping a gun can mean staying on a near-constant treadmill of paperwork, fees and uncertainty. The majority of the 2005 applicants, who are supposed to renew in 2010, are
still waiting for a decision on their 2005 applications.
Note that complying with all the laws is no guarantee law-abiding people will be able keep their guns. South Africa now has what Sarah Brady, head of the Brady Campaign, described as her long-term objective: “needs-based” licensing. (New York Times, Aug. 15, 1993.) You
get to buy or keep a gun only if the government decides that you need it. In South African law, the formal term is “good motivation.”
Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula wrote in a letter to the Gun Dealers’ Association: “Licenses for firearms should not be granted to private individuals.” Similarly, his spokesperson Lesley Xinwa announced, “We are determined to cut down on the number of guns in the country.”
Many license applications are denied, particularly for blacks and others who wish to own self-defense firearms. The Central Firearms Registry (CFR) refuses to say what actually constitutes a good “motivation” for a self-defense firearm. Instead, applications are rejected with
the terse verdicts “lack of motivation” or “insufficient need.”
Married women who want guns for protection are told that their husbands will protect them—as if South African woman should behave like Taliban wives, and never leave the home except with their husbands. People who live in high crime areas are told that the police will protect them—except that the police obviously don’t, as South Africa is one of the most crime-ridden
countries in the world.
Adults who are less than 27 years old are told that they are too young—even though the FCA sets the gun ownership age at 21 (an increase from the old law, which was 16).
Ownership of a firearm without a license is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The results have been catastrophic. From 1999 to 2007, the number of legal gun owners fell by 44 percent, according to the South African Police Service (SAPS). Now, only 5 percent of South Africans legally own guns.
The ANC claimed that the FCA would not cause any job losses. Yet in 2004, just two years after the law went into effect, the number of gun stores plunged from 600 to 200.
The government originally claimed that administration of the new law would cost taxpayers 270 million Rand (about 34 million U.S. dollars). But by the time the act was implemented, the true cost had risen to about 263 million U.S. dollars. The millions wasted on the licensing bureaucracy could have been spent actually protecting citizens.
Blacks suffer most under the restrictive licensing program.
“The situation is running out of control,” Abios Khoele, chairman of the Black Gun Owners Association of South Africa (www.bgoasa.co.za), told the Sunday Times. “We blacks only want arms for self-defense—after all, crime is worst of all in the townships [segregated slums created by the apartheid regime]. The trouble is that the government is clearly targeting white gun owners and they really aren’t the problem anymore. The extremist white right is dead and buried. It’s criminals—murderers and rapists—who we have to defend our families
against.
“For most of the apartheid period, blacks weren’t allowed to own guns, and now a black government is taking away our right to self-defense. … The criminals are extremely well armed.”
Khoele sees the disarmament of blacks as a ploy by a government that is afraid of poor people because of the government’s failures on jobs, housing and services.
“White people want more firearms for sport, and black people only want one gun for self-defense,” Khoele notes. “In our townships, it is not safe at all, especially for people who are taking early transport to work, when it’s still dark and they’re walking a long distance.”
In truth, blacks do not enjoy the security of whites, who often live and work in enclaves with electric fences and high walls.
Undefended by the police, and not allowed by the government to obtain a gun license, many blacks are getting guns anyway, just to protect themselves and their families, observes Khoele.
“Most of the people, they’ve already started to buy illegal firearms,” he told The New York Times in 2005. “Most of them are for self-defense, because they’re living in areas where the police are
unable to protect them.”
The result of the FCA has been to help create a thriving underground market in illegal guns. On the streets, a small pistol can be bought for 25 U.S. dollars, or an AK-47 for 100 U.S.
dollars. In contrast, a legal gun costs about 500-625 U.S. dollars, plus more than 125 U.S. dollars for fees and mandatory training.
One can understand why desperate, decent people would obtain a gun illegally. The police take hours to respond to burglary calls. Sometimes a burglary victim who has captured the burglar may be told to take the burglar to the police station himself, because the police cannot send
someone out.
The gun prohibitionists maintain that legal gun ownership must be drastically reduced because legal guns are stolen by criminals. Yet since the FCA mandates that guns be stored in safes, there is no good rationale for banning guns.
Moreover, police claims that criminals' guns are stolen from law-abiding civilians are often conjectural. If a criminal’s gun has an obliterated serial number, the police rarely conduct the difficult forensics of restoring the number. Instead, they just assert that the gun must have come from a licensed civilian owner.
The leading opposition party in South Africa is the Democratic Alliance (DA), which grew out of the anti-apartheid movement. The DA is a staunch critic of the ANC’s campaign against gun owners. Dianne Kohler Barnard, the DA’s spokeswoman on safety and security issues, rebuts the
stolen-gun pretext for citizen gun bans. She points out that in 2008, the recovery rate for stolen guns was 106 percent—meaning that the police recovered more guns than were stolen, and cut into the pool of guns that had been stolen in previous years.
In contrast, the recovery rate for stolen police guns is only 15 percent. In 2008, there were 2,944 police guns reported stolen, and most of them remain in criminal hands. Similarly, of the guns owned by municipal governments, 8 percent (1,260) have been lost or stolen.
“The country is not awash with criminals holding civilian guns, but with criminals holding police guns,” Kohler Barnard told Cape Argus last October. “We must just sit in our homes unarmed while they [criminals] come with police guns to kill us.” Similarly, of the guns owned by municipal governments, eight percent (1,260) have been lost or stolen.
Kohler Barnard points out that many citizen’s guns that were surrendered to the police have later been used in armed robberies, apparently after being sold by corrupt police.
SAPS says that from April 2006 to March 2007, there were 14,682 civilian firearms reported stolen. That’s out of 2.5 million licensed firearm owners. In other words, one annual gun theft per 170 gun owners, which is a high rate by global standards.
Contrast that with the nearly 3,000 guns stolen from South Africa’s police in a one-year period—one stolen gun per 47 officers. And then there are the many incidents in which citizens gave guns to the police for safekeeping—for example, when a citizen going on extended vacation wants to make sure a gun is not stolen from his home. When attempting to reclaim them
later, citizens are often told their guns are "missing" (The Citizen,Sept. 21, 2007).
Simply put, the single largest supplier of criminals’ guns in South Africa is the South African government. As one businessman told All Africa in 2006, “There are many cases where serving
police officers and soldiers have been found among gang members in cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies.”
Johannesburg’s Sunday Times reported “…there is a huge leakage of weapons from the army and police, who often sell them at a profit. Another source [of criminals’ guns] is homemade guns, turned out in township backyards.”
Many South African criminals use automatic carbines (the R5 and predecessor models), which are the main small arms of the South African National Defense Force. These guns are not legal for civilian ownership.
Who owns the very biggest arsenal of unregistered, unlicensed guns? The African National Congress itself.
The ANC is thought to retain 100 tons of weapons and munitions, left over from its days as a revolutionary army. No one knows how many of these have been sold to criminals. The ANC has never explained why—15 years after it took power in a democratic election—it remains the only political party that has the capability to raise a private army.
During the war decades before 1994, both sides supplied huge quantities of arms to their allies and proxies, in the Republic of South Africa and in nearby countries. Now, many of these guns are flowing past South Africa’s porous borders, to supply the criminal black market.
Khoele, of the Black Gun Owners’ Association, told the Sunday Times, “The ANC smuggled huge numbers of guns into the country and after liberation made no effort to collect them back. Those same weapons are now often used in holdups.”
It is South African governments, past and present, which have supplied the criminals’ guns, and then blamed gun crime on law-abiding gun owners.
South Africa still has an independent judiciary. A decision this summer by the Western Cape High Court ordered the government to pay the legally required compensation for surrendered guns, although whether the government will do so remains uncertain.
It’s important to note that Gun Free South Africa started its offensive against gun ownership by convincing businesses or othe organizations to declare their property “gun free.” The businesses certainly had the right to choose to do so, but they ended up becoming pawns in GFSA’s
long-term campaign to destroy all choice about gun ownership and to make the entire nation of South Africa “gun free.” Or rather, “free” only of guns owned by law-abiding citizens.
Of course, we understand that “gun-free” zones often become killing zones. That is what happened in Rwanda in 1994, where the defenseless genocide victims were “gun free.” That is what is happening today in Zimbabwe, where everyone except Robert Mugabe’s criminal government and its allies is “gun free.” That is what is happening right now in South Africa’s
impoverished townships, where robbers armed with government-supplied guns routinely murder their defenseless victims.
Is there hope for South Africa? Two-thirds of South Africans believe they have a right to own a gun (Financial Mail, Aug. 31,2000), as indeed they do, since human rights are inherent even when governments refuse to respect those rights.
Although the ANC has been steadily consolidating power and removing constitutional checks and balances, South Africa for now remains a democracy, with a free printed press, uncensored Internet and strong opposition parties who stand up for the self-defense rights of South Africans of all races.
The ANC’s Safety and Security Ministry spokesman,Trevor Bloem, told the Associated Press in 2006, “Gun control is here to stay across the world, including in the United States. Anything else would lead to chaos.”
He is being proven wrong about the United States. And he may be wrong about South Africa, for it is the mean-spirited, dishonest and irresponsible gun-control policies of the ANC that are devastating the rule of law and leading to chaos in South Africa.
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/South-Africas-Deadly-Disaster.htm
Freedom, March 2010
By Dave Kopel
When not banning guns outright, the gun prohibition lobbies—both in the United States and abroad—promote gun owner licensing as a “reasonable” and “sensible” regulation. Yet, the terrible experience of South African gun owners shows how purportedly “reasonable” licensing can be used to devastate a culture of responsible gun ownership.
Most of what has been done to South African gun owners is already being pushed in the United States: gun rationing; targeting the poor and people of color; making gun ownership unaffordable; confiscating guns without compensation; and implementing a licensing system that can be deliberately abused in order to stop good people from owning guns.
Add to this list a government that plays a leading role in arming violent criminals, and you have the deadly disaster of today’s South Africa.
The mechanism for gun rights destruction was the Firearms Control Act (FCA), passed in 2000 by the South African Parliament. The key force behind the bill was Gun Free South Africa, one of the many global gun ban lobbies funded by George Soros.
The governments of Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and New Zealand provided advice on the draft law, as did Wendy Cukier, head of Canada’s gun prohibition lobby.
South Africa has a long tradition of shooting sports. The first record of an organized sporting event there was the “parrot shoot,” an annual event that began in Oct. 1686. Borrowing from a European tradition in village fairs, Dutch settlers shot at clay or wooden replicas of
birds, known as “papegaij.”
Unfortunately, South Africa developed a comprehensive series of racial caste laws, formalized in 1948 as “apartheid.” Whites had the most rights, followed by “coloureds” (immigrants from Asia), with blacks at the very bottom.
One of the first steps in dismantling this evil system was led by South African gun owners. In 1984, the apartheid government proposed limiting the number and types of firearms that individuals could own. Anew citizen organization, the South African Gunowners’ Association (SAGA, www.saga.org.za), was created to fight for gun owner rights—and they defeated
the government plan.
SAGA did not stop there. The group began pushing to fix the gun laws so that non-whites would have the same rights as whites. SAGA won this fight in Parliament. However, many police administrators abused their powers and thwarted gun license applications by blacks.
Finally, in 1994, apartheid came to a long-overdue end when South Africa held its first multiracial free elections.
Control of the government passed to the African National Congress (ANC), which was fighting a revolutionary war for much of the century. Since then, South Africa has been ruled by the ANC, and year by year the ANC comes more and more to resemble the former apartheid regime.
Like the apartheid regime, the ANC props up a network of allied dictatorships in southern Africa. Without the support of the ANC, Zimbabwe’s genocidal tyrant, Robert Mugabe, would not still be in power.
Like the apartheid regime, the ANC controls the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s radio and television stations, keeping them in conformity with ruling party ideology, and using the license system to exclude alternative viewpoints.
At the United Nations, the South African delegation protects its tyrannical allies (such as Mugabe and the military junta in Burma) by protesting against outside interference with governments that abuse human rights. The current South African delegation’s arguments are nearly identical to the arguments that the apartheid regime once used when it insisted that foreigners should remain silent about oppression in South Africa.
And like the apartheid regime, the ANC is an enemy of gun owner rights in general, and of black gun owners in particular.
The Firearms Control Act of 2000 rationed gun ownership—no more than one self-defense gun per person and no more than four guns total. The lifetime limit on gun ownership is the logical extension of current efforts by American anti-gun lobbies to ration firearms with
“one-handgun-per-month” laws.
All guns must also be registered—the better to enforce the ownership caps.
Semi-automatic long guns are not allowed, except for farmers and a few other special categories. The lone self-defense gun must be a handgun or a manually operated shotgun.
At its outset, about a third of gun owners had more guns than the FCA allowed, so they were required to sell the guns or surrender them to the government. Section 137 of the FCA expressly promised that compensation would be paid to people who surrendered their excess guns—either
because they had “too many,” or because they were enticed by one of the government’s voluntary gun surrender programs.
More than 600,000 guns have been given to the government, yet the government has yet to pay a penny. In 2005, National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi declared, “You can’t be paid for doing away with an evil thing.”
The new licensing system went into effect in 2004, applying immediately to new applicants. People who had licenses under the old system (the former Arms and Ammunition Act were divided into groups based on date of birth, and required to apply for new licenses starting in 2005. The final set of applications was due on June 30, 2009.
To obtain a gun license in South Africa, one must pass a written “competency test.” The South African constitution recognizes 11 official languages, but the test is only given in two of them, Afrikaans and English. Imagine if your gun ownership rights depended on passing a written test
in a language you could not read!
Applicants are not issued licenses if they are deemed to be at risk of becoming violent. As enforced in South Africa, this could simply mean that a person was divorced, separated or fired within the past two years.
Processing of applications is very slow. For example, of the applications submitted in 2006, only
about a quarter have been fully processed.
Licenses are valid for two, five or 10 years, depending on the legal category of the license, so keeping a gun can mean staying on a near-constant treadmill of paperwork, fees and uncertainty. The majority of the 2005 applicants, who are supposed to renew in 2010, are
still waiting for a decision on their 2005 applications.
Note that complying with all the laws is no guarantee law-abiding people will be able keep their guns. South Africa now has what Sarah Brady, head of the Brady Campaign, described as her long-term objective: “needs-based” licensing. (New York Times, Aug. 15, 1993.) You
get to buy or keep a gun only if the government decides that you need it. In South African law, the formal term is “good motivation.”
Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula wrote in a letter to the Gun Dealers’ Association: “Licenses for firearms should not be granted to private individuals.” Similarly, his spokesperson Lesley Xinwa announced, “We are determined to cut down on the number of guns in the country.”
Many license applications are denied, particularly for blacks and others who wish to own self-defense firearms. The Central Firearms Registry (CFR) refuses to say what actually constitutes a good “motivation” for a self-defense firearm. Instead, applications are rejected with
the terse verdicts “lack of motivation” or “insufficient need.”
Married women who want guns for protection are told that their husbands will protect them—as if South African woman should behave like Taliban wives, and never leave the home except with their husbands. People who live in high crime areas are told that the police will protect them—except that the police obviously don’t, as South Africa is one of the most crime-ridden
countries in the world.
Adults who are less than 27 years old are told that they are too young—even though the FCA sets the gun ownership age at 21 (an increase from the old law, which was 16).
Ownership of a firearm without a license is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The results have been catastrophic. From 1999 to 2007, the number of legal gun owners fell by 44 percent, according to the South African Police Service (SAPS). Now, only 5 percent of South Africans legally own guns.
The ANC claimed that the FCA would not cause any job losses. Yet in 2004, just two years after the law went into effect, the number of gun stores plunged from 600 to 200.
The government originally claimed that administration of the new law would cost taxpayers 270 million Rand (about 34 million U.S. dollars). But by the time the act was implemented, the true cost had risen to about 263 million U.S. dollars. The millions wasted on the licensing bureaucracy could have been spent actually protecting citizens.
Blacks suffer most under the restrictive licensing program.
“The situation is running out of control,” Abios Khoele, chairman of the Black Gun Owners Association of South Africa (www.bgoasa.co.za), told the Sunday Times. “We blacks only want arms for self-defense—after all, crime is worst of all in the townships [segregated slums created by the apartheid regime]. The trouble is that the government is clearly targeting white gun owners and they really aren’t the problem anymore. The extremist white right is dead and buried. It’s criminals—murderers and rapists—who we have to defend our families
against.
“For most of the apartheid period, blacks weren’t allowed to own guns, and now a black government is taking away our right to self-defense. … The criminals are extremely well armed.”
Khoele sees the disarmament of blacks as a ploy by a government that is afraid of poor people because of the government’s failures on jobs, housing and services.
“White people want more firearms for sport, and black people only want one gun for self-defense,” Khoele notes. “In our townships, it is not safe at all, especially for people who are taking early transport to work, when it’s still dark and they’re walking a long distance.”
In truth, blacks do not enjoy the security of whites, who often live and work in enclaves with electric fences and high walls.
Undefended by the police, and not allowed by the government to obtain a gun license, many blacks are getting guns anyway, just to protect themselves and their families, observes Khoele.
“Most of the people, they’ve already started to buy illegal firearms,” he told The New York Times in 2005. “Most of them are for self-defense, because they’re living in areas where the police are
unable to protect them.”
The result of the FCA has been to help create a thriving underground market in illegal guns. On the streets, a small pistol can be bought for 25 U.S. dollars, or an AK-47 for 100 U.S.
dollars. In contrast, a legal gun costs about 500-625 U.S. dollars, plus more than 125 U.S. dollars for fees and mandatory training.
One can understand why desperate, decent people would obtain a gun illegally. The police take hours to respond to burglary calls. Sometimes a burglary victim who has captured the burglar may be told to take the burglar to the police station himself, because the police cannot send
someone out.
The gun prohibitionists maintain that legal gun ownership must be drastically reduced because legal guns are stolen by criminals. Yet since the FCA mandates that guns be stored in safes, there is no good rationale for banning guns.
Moreover, police claims that criminals' guns are stolen from law-abiding civilians are often conjectural. If a criminal’s gun has an obliterated serial number, the police rarely conduct the difficult forensics of restoring the number. Instead, they just assert that the gun must have come from a licensed civilian owner.
The leading opposition party in South Africa is the Democratic Alliance (DA), which grew out of the anti-apartheid movement. The DA is a staunch critic of the ANC’s campaign against gun owners. Dianne Kohler Barnard, the DA’s spokeswoman on safety and security issues, rebuts the
stolen-gun pretext for citizen gun bans. She points out that in 2008, the recovery rate for stolen guns was 106 percent—meaning that the police recovered more guns than were stolen, and cut into the pool of guns that had been stolen in previous years.
In contrast, the recovery rate for stolen police guns is only 15 percent. In 2008, there were 2,944 police guns reported stolen, and most of them remain in criminal hands. Similarly, of the guns owned by municipal governments, 8 percent (1,260) have been lost or stolen.
“The country is not awash with criminals holding civilian guns, but with criminals holding police guns,” Kohler Barnard told Cape Argus last October. “We must just sit in our homes unarmed while they [criminals] come with police guns to kill us.” Similarly, of the guns owned by municipal governments, eight percent (1,260) have been lost or stolen.
Kohler Barnard points out that many citizen’s guns that were surrendered to the police have later been used in armed robberies, apparently after being sold by corrupt police.
SAPS says that from April 2006 to March 2007, there were 14,682 civilian firearms reported stolen. That’s out of 2.5 million licensed firearm owners. In other words, one annual gun theft per 170 gun owners, which is a high rate by global standards.
Contrast that with the nearly 3,000 guns stolen from South Africa’s police in a one-year period—one stolen gun per 47 officers. And then there are the many incidents in which citizens gave guns to the police for safekeeping—for example, when a citizen going on extended vacation wants to make sure a gun is not stolen from his home. When attempting to reclaim them
later, citizens are often told their guns are "missing" (The Citizen,Sept. 21, 2007).
Simply put, the single largest supplier of criminals’ guns in South Africa is the South African government. As one businessman told All Africa in 2006, “There are many cases where serving
police officers and soldiers have been found among gang members in cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies.”
Johannesburg’s Sunday Times reported “…there is a huge leakage of weapons from the army and police, who often sell them at a profit. Another source [of criminals’ guns] is homemade guns, turned out in township backyards.”
Many South African criminals use automatic carbines (the R5 and predecessor models), which are the main small arms of the South African National Defense Force. These guns are not legal for civilian ownership.
Who owns the very biggest arsenal of unregistered, unlicensed guns? The African National Congress itself.
The ANC is thought to retain 100 tons of weapons and munitions, left over from its days as a revolutionary army. No one knows how many of these have been sold to criminals. The ANC has never explained why—15 years after it took power in a democratic election—it remains the only political party that has the capability to raise a private army.
During the war decades before 1994, both sides supplied huge quantities of arms to their allies and proxies, in the Republic of South Africa and in nearby countries. Now, many of these guns are flowing past South Africa’s porous borders, to supply the criminal black market.
Khoele, of the Black Gun Owners’ Association, told the Sunday Times, “The ANC smuggled huge numbers of guns into the country and after liberation made no effort to collect them back. Those same weapons are now often used in holdups.”
It is South African governments, past and present, which have supplied the criminals’ guns, and then blamed gun crime on law-abiding gun owners.
South Africa still has an independent judiciary. A decision this summer by the Western Cape High Court ordered the government to pay the legally required compensation for surrendered guns, although whether the government will do so remains uncertain.
It’s important to note that Gun Free South Africa started its offensive against gun ownership by convincing businesses or othe organizations to declare their property “gun free.” The businesses certainly had the right to choose to do so, but they ended up becoming pawns in GFSA’s
long-term campaign to destroy all choice about gun ownership and to make the entire nation of South Africa “gun free.” Or rather, “free” only of guns owned by law-abiding citizens.
Of course, we understand that “gun-free” zones often become killing zones. That is what happened in Rwanda in 1994, where the defenseless genocide victims were “gun free.” That is what is happening today in Zimbabwe, where everyone except Robert Mugabe’s criminal government and its allies is “gun free.” That is what is happening right now in South Africa’s
impoverished townships, where robbers armed with government-supplied guns routinely murder their defenseless victims.
Is there hope for South Africa? Two-thirds of South Africans believe they have a right to own a gun (Financial Mail, Aug. 31,2000), as indeed they do, since human rights are inherent even when governments refuse to respect those rights.
Although the ANC has been steadily consolidating power and removing constitutional checks and balances, South Africa for now remains a democracy, with a free printed press, uncensored Internet and strong opposition parties who stand up for the self-defense rights of South Africans of all races.
The ANC’s Safety and Security Ministry spokesman,Trevor Bloem, told the Associated Press in 2006, “Gun control is here to stay across the world, including in the United States. Anything else would lead to chaos.”
He is being proven wrong about the United States. And he may be wrong about South Africa, for it is the mean-spirited, dishonest and irresponsible gun-control policies of the ANC that are devastating the rule of law and leading to chaos in South Africa.
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/South-Africas-Deadly-Disaster.htm
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Bank Robber Escapes - Again!!
2011-08-11
The escape of an alleged bank robber from the Pretoria Regional Court makes a mockery of the police.
Bongani Moyo, who has allegedly been linked to more than 30 bank robberies, escaped on Wednesday.
This was his second escape this year. In March, he escaped from Boksburg Prison.
He was on crutches at the time of his second escape and was not locked in a cell or wearing shackles. He was sitting between courts 16 and 17 and escaped through Court 16.
Why was Moyo was left unattended and who was responsible for him?
Why was he was not handcuffed, taking into account his previous escape?
It was embarrassing that police seemed not to understand the importance of ensuring that a criminal of Moyo's calibre should be securely escorted to court.
Police had not made progress in finding Moyo.
Cele has so much to answer to these days..guess nothing will happen here either...????
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Moyos-escape-makes-a-mockery-of-our-police-20110811
Bongani Moyo
The escape of an alleged bank robber from the Pretoria Regional Court makes a mockery of the police.
Bongani Moyo, who has allegedly been linked to more than 30 bank robberies, escaped on Wednesday.
This was his second escape this year. In March, he escaped from Boksburg Prison.
He was on crutches at the time of his second escape and was not locked in a cell or wearing shackles. He was sitting between courts 16 and 17 and escaped through Court 16.
Why was Moyo was left unattended and who was responsible for him?
Why was he was not handcuffed, taking into account his previous escape?
It was embarrassing that police seemed not to understand the importance of ensuring that a criminal of Moyo's calibre should be securely escorted to court.
Police had not made progress in finding Moyo.
READERS COMMENTS
Luckily he isn't an alleged right winger else even the car guard would be looking out for him
No shackles ?, no gaurds ?.... oh I forgot hes not white
What a JOKE...
He ascaped on crutches...
I smell a rat...
He ascaped on crutches...
I smell a rat...
These boeties look after each other. Bet he is a relative of one of the court orderlies.
After 30 odd bank robberies he had plenty to buy his freedom. He didnt escape, he was let free
Only a man on crutches could deliver such a crippling blow to that SAPS' reputation
Get rid of this currupt government and stop bee, and aa in the police and you might get some honest cops, not the sh1t we have now. Even the top cop is a piece of turd that should be flushed.
Some of the Cops I have seen lately are so fat carrying not one but three arses, there is not a chance in hell they would catch him ...and why would they want to ..they have their money already!!
Cele has so much to answer to these days..guess nothing will happen here either...????
Rot starts at the core. SAP is dirty from Don Cele all the way down. This guy bought his freedom through a willing and corrupt police force.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Moyos-escape-makes-a-mockery-of-our-police-20110811
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Cele seeks probe into police tenders
2011-07-27
Cele - nobody's buying it .
National police commissioner General Bheki Cele asked the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate the way certain contracts for construction, uniforms and equipment were granted within the SA Police Service, according to a report in The Star on Wednesday.
Cele said the SIU probe was in terms of a presidential proclamation signed by President Jacob Zuma in July and August last year.
He said he met SIU head Willie Hofmeyr in November 2009 to request an urgent investigation into the supply chain management division, and later learnt that the SIU was sitting with a similar request from the police's Independent Complaints Directorate, lodged in May 2009.
No reference was made in the article to the public protector's recent findings that as the accounting officer, Cele, with Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, were accountable for the approval of two multimillion rand leases for police headquarters which the protector said were concluded improperly.
R4bn worth of inflated tenders
According to Wednesday's report, 33 police stations at a cost of R330m are currently under scrutiny by the SIU as well as three former police generals, who allegedly benefited from R4bn worth of allegedly irregularly awarded and inflated tenders.
Cele cited three matters: the Inanda police station, which was supposed to cost R15m, Pienaar police station in Mpumalanga which was to cost R40m and a police station in KwaMaphumulo, which would cost R7m to build from foundation to finish.
Inanda and Pienaar cost R134m and KwaMaphumulo was not built. Where did the other R72m go to????
Other contracts include goods and services provided to the forensic science laboratory; the procurement of certain leases for the police; the procurement of information management systems; the manufacturing and supply of police uniforms and alleged irregularities in awarding a R1bn radio communications tender in the Eastern Cape.
"The SAPS has nothing to show for the more than R900m that has already been spent on a contract to provide radio communication services to the Eastern Cape, yet more money was being allocated to this contract despite the fact that no one could tell me, as the accounting officer, why this service was needed in the SAPS in the first place," Cele was quoted as saying.
He said police leadership had also decided to use retrenched textile workers to provide uniforms for the police, but then found that a contract to a private company, which had expired when the decision was taken, was extended to expire in 2013.
He said the extraordinarily high cost of police stations needed to be investigated and that police stations built by one company, Midway Two, had paid up to four times the original amount, according to The Star.
Shocked
Cele said: "To say I was shocked by the state of affairs in this division would be the understatement of the century. Contracts were signed without any members of the bid committee actually sitting down for a meeting. Instead, members of the committee would sign their approval of tender awards from wherever they each would be at a particular point in time. Some of the contracts were signed in 2009 and only meant to be effective from April 2012," Cele said.
The report named three former policemen as being investigated: Lieutenant General Hamilton Hlela a deputy national police commissioner and head of the police's supply chain management; Lieutenant General Matthews Siwundla and Major General Stefanus Terblanche.
Cele decided to remove them from the supply chain environment and so Hlela and Terblanche offered to resign and Siwundla asked for early retirement.
"I signed the directive terminating their services for one reason only: To bring efficiencies to the service," he said.
When contacted for comment, Hlela and Siwundla said there were no irregularities with the contracts.
The Star reported that SIU spokesperson Karam Singh confirmed the investigation was focused on the officials and would only say the unit was aware of the allegations against Midway Two.
Cele has cancelled two press briefings intended to provide an official response to the protector's findings. Media queries on the matter were removed from the police and redirected to government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi, and then to newly appointed spokesperson for Zuma, Mac Maharaj.
On the eve of a press conference by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, thought to have been to provide her findings on the lease probe, The Star ran a report that Madonsela was about to be arrested for corruption but Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and Cele said this was a surprise to them.
Maharaj told Sapa on Wednesday that processes relating to Madonsela's report were under way.
The relevant ministers have been written to by Zuma so that internal processes could be taken up with "urgency and seriousness".
Asked when a response would be made public, he could not say, but it would be within timelines set down.
"We are clear that we are treating the public protector's report as a serious report," said Maharaj.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cele-seeks-probe-into-police-tenders-20110727
Why did I not get a cut , he asks ?
Diverting Attention?
And unbelievably not a word about his own corruption charges. OH sure Cele, let's get all sanctimonius about corruption by your staff and forget all about your thieving. Have you considered that maybe you set the tone for corruption in your department ? Feeble diversion tactics
Cele - nobody's buying it .
The corrupt are investigating the corrupt !
I see! He's was investigating incompetence, maladministration and unlawful conduct in 2009. A year later he decided to do it also.
National police commissioner General Bheki Cele asked the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate the way certain contracts for construction, uniforms and equipment were granted within the SA Police Service, according to a report in The Star on Wednesday.
Cele said the SIU probe was in terms of a presidential proclamation signed by President Jacob Zuma in July and August last year.
He said he met SIU head Willie Hofmeyr in November 2009 to request an urgent investigation into the supply chain management division, and later learnt that the SIU was sitting with a similar request from the police's Independent Complaints Directorate, lodged in May 2009.
No reference was made in the article to the public protector's recent findings that as the accounting officer, Cele, with Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, were accountable for the approval of two multimillion rand leases for police headquarters which the protector said were concluded improperly.
R4bn worth of inflated tenders
According to Wednesday's report, 33 police stations at a cost of R330m are currently under scrutiny by the SIU as well as three former police generals, who allegedly benefited from R4bn worth of allegedly irregularly awarded and inflated tenders.
Cele cited three matters: the Inanda police station, which was supposed to cost R15m, Pienaar police station in Mpumalanga which was to cost R40m and a police station in KwaMaphumulo, which would cost R7m to build from foundation to finish.
Inanda and Pienaar cost R134m and KwaMaphumulo was not built. Where did the other R72m go to????
Other contracts include goods and services provided to the forensic science laboratory; the procurement of certain leases for the police; the procurement of information management systems; the manufacturing and supply of police uniforms and alleged irregularities in awarding a R1bn radio communications tender in the Eastern Cape.
"The SAPS has nothing to show for the more than R900m that has already been spent on a contract to provide radio communication services to the Eastern Cape, yet more money was being allocated to this contract despite the fact that no one could tell me, as the accounting officer, why this service was needed in the SAPS in the first place," Cele was quoted as saying.
He said police leadership had also decided to use retrenched textile workers to provide uniforms for the police, but then found that a contract to a private company, which had expired when the decision was taken, was extended to expire in 2013.
He said the extraordinarily high cost of police stations needed to be investigated and that police stations built by one company, Midway Two, had paid up to four times the original amount, according to The Star.
Shocked
Cele said: "To say I was shocked by the state of affairs in this division would be the understatement of the century. Contracts were signed without any members of the bid committee actually sitting down for a meeting. Instead, members of the committee would sign their approval of tender awards from wherever they each would be at a particular point in time. Some of the contracts were signed in 2009 and only meant to be effective from April 2012," Cele said.
The report named three former policemen as being investigated: Lieutenant General Hamilton Hlela a deputy national police commissioner and head of the police's supply chain management; Lieutenant General Matthews Siwundla and Major General Stefanus Terblanche.
Cele decided to remove them from the supply chain environment and so Hlela and Terblanche offered to resign and Siwundla asked for early retirement.
"I signed the directive terminating their services for one reason only: To bring efficiencies to the service," he said.
When contacted for comment, Hlela and Siwundla said there were no irregularities with the contracts.
The Star reported that SIU spokesperson Karam Singh confirmed the investigation was focused on the officials and would only say the unit was aware of the allegations against Midway Two.
Cele has cancelled two press briefings intended to provide an official response to the protector's findings. Media queries on the matter were removed from the police and redirected to government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi, and then to newly appointed spokesperson for Zuma, Mac Maharaj.
On the eve of a press conference by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, thought to have been to provide her findings on the lease probe, The Star ran a report that Madonsela was about to be arrested for corruption but Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and Cele said this was a surprise to them.
Maharaj told Sapa on Wednesday that processes relating to Madonsela's report were under way.
The relevant ministers have been written to by Zuma so that internal processes could be taken up with "urgency and seriousness".
Asked when a response would be made public, he could not say, but it would be within timelines set down.
"We are clear that we are treating the public protector's report as a serious report," said Maharaj.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cele-seeks-probe-into-police-tenders-20110727
Cele plane bill soars to R1.5m
2011-07-26
National police commissioner General Bheki Cele has spent at least R1.498m on flights with the SAPS since August 2009, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Tuesday.
In a written reply to a parliamentary question by the Democratic Alliance's Dianne Kohler Barnard, he said Cele had jetted around 47 times by May 30 this year.
While most flights were domestic, to all corners of the country, he also flew to Malawi, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe in the jet, Mthethwa said.
In a statement later, Kohler Barnard lambasted the embattled police chief and again called for his dismissal.
No reason given for trips
Mthethwa had not disclosed the purpose of these trips, nor did he indicate why Cele could not travel using a commercial airline in each instance.
Recently, Cele's conduct regarding the "dodgy" police lease deals had been found by the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to be unlawful, improper, and constituting maladministration, she said.
"This latest revelation underscores the disregard that Commissioner Cele has repeatedly displayed for accountability, professional conduct, and prudent use of State funds.
"It is unclear what more evidence President Jacob Zuma needs before Commissioner Cele is dismissed."
Reckless spending
In less than one month, Cele racked up a bill of R150 000 on three separate trips from OR Tambo International, Johannesburg, to Cape Town.
Three such business class trips on SAA would have equalled less than a tenth of that cost.
In terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) the accounting officer of an institution should exercise all reasonable care to detect unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure, and should for this purpose implement effective, efficient, and transparent processes of financial and risk management.
Cele was the police’s accounting officer, and his about R1.5m plane bill constituted reckless expenditure, Kohler Barnard said.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cele-soars-to-R15m-plane-bill-20110726
National police commissioner General Bheki Cele has spent at least R1.498m on flights with the SAPS since August 2009, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Tuesday.
In a written reply to a parliamentary question by the Democratic Alliance's Dianne Kohler Barnard, he said Cele had jetted around 47 times by May 30 this year.
While most flights were domestic, to all corners of the country, he also flew to Malawi, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe in the jet, Mthethwa said.
In a statement later, Kohler Barnard lambasted the embattled police chief and again called for his dismissal.
No reason given for trips
Mthethwa had not disclosed the purpose of these trips, nor did he indicate why Cele could not travel using a commercial airline in each instance.
Recently, Cele's conduct regarding the "dodgy" police lease deals had been found by the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to be unlawful, improper, and constituting maladministration, she said.
"This latest revelation underscores the disregard that Commissioner Cele has repeatedly displayed for accountability, professional conduct, and prudent use of State funds.
"It is unclear what more evidence President Jacob Zuma needs before Commissioner Cele is dismissed."
Reckless spending
In less than one month, Cele racked up a bill of R150 000 on three separate trips from OR Tambo International, Johannesburg, to Cape Town.
Three such business class trips on SAA would have equalled less than a tenth of that cost.
In terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) the accounting officer of an institution should exercise all reasonable care to detect unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure, and should for this purpose implement effective, efficient, and transparent processes of financial and risk management.
Cele was the police’s accounting officer, and his about R1.5m plane bill constituted reckless expenditure, Kohler Barnard said.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cele-soars-to-R15m-plane-bill-20110726
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Improper, Illegal, Invalid and Unlawfull
Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's final report into the scandalous R1.78-billion police lease deals heaped criticism on Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, calling for harsh action to be taken against her.
Releasing the second report into the controversial lease deals, Madonsela again singled out Mahlangu-Nkabinde and National Police Commissioner General Bheki Cele.
She said both had acted "improperly" and "unlawfully" and that the deals were illegal and invalid.
Her first report into the police headquarters deal in Middestad, Pretoria, was released in February. It was scathing of Cele, saying his "improper and unlawful" conduct was central to the signing.
Yesterday, she said Cele's failure to enforce the correct tender procedures for the Transnet Building in Durban the SAPS intended to lease amounted to maladministration.
But Mahlangu-Nkabinde came off worse yesterday, with Madonsela urging President Jacob Zuma to take action against her and some of her top officials.
"The president should consider taking action against the minister of public works for her actions referred to in this report and the report on the procurement of the lease of the Middestad building.
"I'm not prescribing to the president what to do, but I expect him to do the right thing."
Madonsela said Mahlangu-Nkabinde failed to co-operate with her investigation and that her conduct "failed to meet the requisite stewardship expected from her".
Mahlangu-Nkabinde not only ignored a request from Madonsela's office in August last year to halt the implementation of the lease deals until she had finished her investigation, but also ignored legal advice from two senior counsel advising her against them.
She also went against an internal inquiry by her office that found that the agreements were illegal.
Her duty being to "ensure that public finances are not wasted", Madonsela also recommended that Mahlangu-Nkabinde explain to the cabinet within 60 days why she took those decisions and why she failed to co-operate .
Madonsela also recommended that the Treasury and the Department of Public Service and Administration take "urgent" action against officials who broke the law.
"The reckless manner in which the DPW dealt with public funds in this case, particularly by not following prescribed tender process without justification, not ensuring that the state received value for money, fell short of the requirements of good governance and administration," Madonsela said.
The dodgy lease deals were exposed in August last year when the Sunday Times reported how property mogul Roux Shabangu had managed to get the police and Department of Public Works to rent two of his buildings at inflated prices, even though SAPS couldn't afford them and didn't need them urgently.
For the Middestad building in Pretoria, the rent was initially set at R85/m² and was later escalated to R125.40/m², a total of R614-million for 10 years.
For the Transnet building in Durban, the rent was first set at R40/m² but hiked to R125.30/m² - R1.16-billion for the same period - before it was signed with Shabangu.
"This rendered the process unlawful and further constituted improper conduct and maladministration," said Madonsela in her second report, called 'Against the Rules Too'.
She found that not only were both buildings of the worst - or C-grade - standard and in need of major refurbishment at significant cost to the state, but that the state was being ripped off.
In both leases, the SAPS negotiated with Shabangu before the Department of Public Works got involved in the process as required by law. To afford it, the police would have to divert money from elsewhere in its budget.
Madonsela alleged that Shabangu contacted police and public works officials, and pressurised them into finalising the deals. Shabangu has denied this.
She also said Shabangu admitted that he would receive prior warning from sources in public works if any government department was in the market for office space.
Madonsela said she would support any legal action taken by complainants Institute of Accountability in Southern Africa director Paul Hoffman, and Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald.
"I have indicated that I will back the parties in court and confirm my report."
Cele's spokesman, Major-General Nonkululeko Mbatha, said in a statement:
"The SAPS will release its official response early next week."
TIME LINES
August 1 2010: Sunday Times exposes how Police Commissioner Bheki Cele allegedly flouted tender procurement procedures in a deal for headquarters in Pretoria and Durban with businessman Roux Shabangu.
August 2: A complaint regarding the deal is lodged with Public Protector Thuli Madonsela by Paul Hoffman of the Institute for Accountability in Southern African and Pieter Groenewald of the FF+.
August 3: Madonsela asks Cele not to proceed with the deal pending her investigation. He agrees.
August 4: Mzilikazi wa Afrika, one of the journalists who broke the story, is arrested by police at the Sunday Times offices, held overnight and released by court order the next day.
August 5: Madonsela launches an investigation into the deal, supported by the Special Investigating Unit.
August 16: Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge says in response to a parliamentary question that the leases are on hold pending Madonsela's investigation.
October 31: President Jacob Zuma fires Geoff Doidge and replaces him with Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde.
December 7: Mahlangu-Nkabinde reinstates the Middestad building lease.
December 15: Mahlangu-Nkabinde's special adviser meets with Madonsela to present a legal opinion from the State Attorney that the deal is enforceable. Madonsela urges them not to "attach weight" to such a "hastily prepared" opinion.
February 22 2011: Madonsela releases her findings into the Middestad lease and finds Cele guilty of "improper, unlawful" conduct.
May 8: Sunday Times exposes Shabangu as a frontrunner in a tender worth over R1-billion for the relocation of police provincial headquarters in Durban.
May 27: After months of trying, Madonsela interviews Mahlangu-Nkabinde, who agrees to stop the tender.
June 8: Madonsela sends her provisional report into the Durban lease investigation to the parties involved to respond.
June 19: Sunday Times reveals Madonsela's provisional findings.
July 14: Madonsela releases her final report finding that the Durban building was also improperly acquired.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2011/07/14/thuli-madonsela-s-scathing-report
Thuli Madonsela
Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde
Releasing the second report into the controversial lease deals, Madonsela again singled out Mahlangu-Nkabinde and National Police Commissioner General Bheki Cele.
General Bheki Cele
She said both had acted "improperly" and "unlawfully" and that the deals were illegal and invalid.
Her first report into the police headquarters deal in Middestad, Pretoria, was released in February. It was scathing of Cele, saying his "improper and unlawful" conduct was central to the signing.
Yesterday, she said Cele's failure to enforce the correct tender procedures for the Transnet Building in Durban the SAPS intended to lease amounted to maladministration.
But Mahlangu-Nkabinde came off worse yesterday, with Madonsela urging President Jacob Zuma to take action against her and some of her top officials.
"The president should consider taking action against the minister of public works for her actions referred to in this report and the report on the procurement of the lease of the Middestad building.
"I'm not prescribing to the president what to do, but I expect him to do the right thing."
Madonsela said Mahlangu-Nkabinde failed to co-operate with her investigation and that her conduct "failed to meet the requisite stewardship expected from her".
Mahlangu-Nkabinde not only ignored a request from Madonsela's office in August last year to halt the implementation of the lease deals until she had finished her investigation, but also ignored legal advice from two senior counsel advising her against them.
She also went against an internal inquiry by her office that found that the agreements were illegal.
Her duty being to "ensure that public finances are not wasted", Madonsela also recommended that Mahlangu-Nkabinde explain to the cabinet within 60 days why she took those decisions and why she failed to co-operate .
Madonsela also recommended that the Treasury and the Department of Public Service and Administration take "urgent" action against officials who broke the law.
"The reckless manner in which the DPW dealt with public funds in this case, particularly by not following prescribed tender process without justification, not ensuring that the state received value for money, fell short of the requirements of good governance and administration," Madonsela said.
The dodgy lease deals were exposed in August last year when the Sunday Times reported how property mogul Roux Shabangu had managed to get the police and Department of Public Works to rent two of his buildings at inflated prices, even though SAPS couldn't afford them and didn't need them urgently.
Roux Shabangu
For the Middestad building in Pretoria, the rent was initially set at R85/m² and was later escalated to R125.40/m², a total of R614-million for 10 years.
For the Transnet building in Durban, the rent was first set at R40/m² but hiked to R125.30/m² - R1.16-billion for the same period - before it was signed with Shabangu.
"This rendered the process unlawful and further constituted improper conduct and maladministration," said Madonsela in her second report, called 'Against the Rules Too'.
She found that not only were both buildings of the worst - or C-grade - standard and in need of major refurbishment at significant cost to the state, but that the state was being ripped off.
In both leases, the SAPS negotiated with Shabangu before the Department of Public Works got involved in the process as required by law. To afford it, the police would have to divert money from elsewhere in its budget.
Madonsela alleged that Shabangu contacted police and public works officials, and pressurised them into finalising the deals. Shabangu has denied this.
She also said Shabangu admitted that he would receive prior warning from sources in public works if any government department was in the market for office space.
Madonsela said she would support any legal action taken by complainants Institute of Accountability in Southern Africa director Paul Hoffman, and Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald.
"I have indicated that I will back the parties in court and confirm my report."
Cele's spokesman, Major-General Nonkululeko Mbatha, said in a statement:
"The SAPS will release its official response early next week."
TIME LINES
August 1 2010: Sunday Times exposes how Police Commissioner Bheki Cele allegedly flouted tender procurement procedures in a deal for headquarters in Pretoria and Durban with businessman Roux Shabangu.
August 2: A complaint regarding the deal is lodged with Public Protector Thuli Madonsela by Paul Hoffman of the Institute for Accountability in Southern African and Pieter Groenewald of the FF+.
August 3: Madonsela asks Cele not to proceed with the deal pending her investigation. He agrees.
August 4: Mzilikazi wa Afrika, one of the journalists who broke the story, is arrested by police at the Sunday Times offices, held overnight and released by court order the next day.
August 5: Madonsela launches an investigation into the deal, supported by the Special Investigating Unit.
August 16: Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge says in response to a parliamentary question that the leases are on hold pending Madonsela's investigation.
October 31: President Jacob Zuma fires Geoff Doidge and replaces him with Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde.
December 7: Mahlangu-Nkabinde reinstates the Middestad building lease.
December 15: Mahlangu-Nkabinde's special adviser meets with Madonsela to present a legal opinion from the State Attorney that the deal is enforceable. Madonsela urges them not to "attach weight" to such a "hastily prepared" opinion.
February 22 2011: Madonsela releases her findings into the Middestad lease and finds Cele guilty of "improper, unlawful" conduct.
May 8: Sunday Times exposes Shabangu as a frontrunner in a tender worth over R1-billion for the relocation of police provincial headquarters in Durban.
May 27: After months of trying, Madonsela interviews Mahlangu-Nkabinde, who agrees to stop the tender.
June 8: Madonsela sends her provisional report into the Durban lease investigation to the parties involved to respond.
June 19: Sunday Times reveals Madonsela's provisional findings.
July 14: Madonsela releases her final report finding that the Durban building was also improperly acquired.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2011/07/14/thuli-madonsela-s-scathing-report
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Twelve SA leaders charged with genocide - ICC, The Hague
June 18 2010 – The International Criminal Court has confirmed receipt of a complaint by a Rustenburg farmer against twelve of South Africa’s top politicians - including president Jacob Zuma -- on charges of genocidal hate-speech and human-rights violations.
Among the many charges, there’s also a mention of incitement to kill Afrikaner farmers with the illegal genocidal hatespeech chant “Shoot the Farmer’.
There are twelve co-respondents in the case, said Fanie van der Walt, the farmer’s lawyer in a media statement, published by Radio Sonder Grense and by Sowetan newspaper.
In the sworn statements handed in to the ICC in The Hague, the leading South Africans who are included in the charges are: President Jacob Zuma, ANC youth league leader Julius Malema, SAPS minister Nathi Mthethwa, SAPS head Bheki Cele, former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi, Minsiter of agriculture, forestry and fisheries Tina Joemat Peterson, Defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Intelligence minister Siyabonga Cwele, ex-Intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils, African National Congress party’s secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, and the ministers for rural development and for land affairs, Gugile Nkwinti and Pali Lehohla. The charges are genocide and crimes against humanity, reports Radio Sonder Grense.
“Sowetan” newspaper quotes the Rustenburg farmer’s lawyer Fanie van der Walt as saying in a statement: “The office of the prosecutor of the ICC confirmed in writing the receipt of the complaints which will now receive attention.”
One of the charges against Malema involves his incitement for genocide in his publing singing of the chant “shoot the Boer”, defying two High Court rulings making it illegal to chant the genocidal hatespeech song in public.
The unidentified Rustenburg farmer and his family reportedly left South Africa two weeks ago, fearing for their safety after deciding to lay the charge against Malema.
They have also asked the international court for a guarantee of protection – and won’t return to South Africa unless they can obtain a guarantee for their safety.
The submission of information to the office of the prosecutor did not automatically trigger an investigation, said Van der Walt. “In accordance with the Rome Statute, the office must analyse all information submitted in order to determine whether the rigorous criteria of the statute are satisfied.
“Once a decision is reached whether or not a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation exists, the office of the prosecutor will promptly inform [us] thereof, along with reasons for the decision.
“We believe however that the ICC will decide to formally investigate the complaints because they comply with the very specific and defined jurisdiction and mandate of the [court] as defined by the Rome Statute.”
“Afrikaners are the target of ethnic-violence” – UNPO
Picture: Afrikaner-members of UNPO Dr Pieter Mulder, left and Andre Fourie at the UNPO annual congress in Rome, Italy May 2010The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation – which represents 200-million people worldwide and has 54 minority-group members – also issued a unanimous statement at its annual meeting in Rome, Italy last month -- , condemning the South African farm-murders/attacks against the Afrikaners, labelling these as "Serious Human Rights Violations' during their annual general meeting in Rome, Italy. http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2010/05/farm-murders-serious-human-rights.html
UNPO statement: "Afrikaners in general, and the Afrikaner farmers in particular, are the target of ethnic violence. The South African murder rate is extremely high at 48 murders per 100,000 of the population, compared to 2 murders per 100,000 in Europe, for example.
If Afrikaner farmers are taken as a statistical population, the murder rate is 287 per 100,000. This is a grave situation, with more than 2,000 Afrikaner farmers having already been murdered in the last 13 years* . http://www.unpo.org/content/view/8148/247/
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Cele Defends Heavy-Handed Cops
2011-05-10
That was why heavy-handed police officials are only a reflection of the society from which they come, National Police Commissioner General Bheki Cele said in Pretoria on Monday.
Referring to several instances where police officials were heavy-handed and where such actions led to people’s deaths, Cele said it was unavoidable that they would sometimes be rough.
"We are a violent society."
"We are in a society where a six-year-old child is raped by her uncle and stabbed seven times with a knife.
"We are in a society where a 70-year-old man is stabbed 72 times with a knife.”
"Our police officials are recruited in this society and work in this community."
Violence
Cele emphasised that people should not behave violently and lawlessly.
He referred specifically to protest marches that started legally but then got out of control. At the end of the protest march, buildings were burnt down, tyres were set alight, windows smashed and cars were damaged.
THESE ARE ONGOING INCIDENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA ALMOST ON A DAILY BASIS
"Criminals have no respect for any law or human rights. Neither do the ANC
"Police officials have to face this every day. They have the right to protect themselves and those who are threatened by criminals.”
Cele said there were cases where police acted heavy-handedly, and they paid for that. But there were also cases where police were accused of heavy-handedness even though there was no proof of the allegations against them.
For example, police were accused earlier this year of having used live ammunition on protesters in Nyibe township near Ermelo when their rubber bullets ran out.
The live ammunition apparently claimed the life of Mphikeleli Solomon Madonsela, 41.
Cele said the Independent Complaints Directorate had not found any proof that the police had caused Madonsela’s death.
"People have the right to hold protests, but the violence on both sides - from the police and the people - has to be eliminated.
"Police sometimes use extra violence and sometimes it is unnecessary but no one has the right to burn down someone else’s house, school or even police station.”
Pressure
Professor Christiaan Bezuidenhout, a criminologist at the University of Pretoria, said most police officials were proud of their work and their uniform, “but there are a few rotten apples abusing their power”.
He believed the heavy-handedness of some police officials could be ascribed to the enormous pressure under which they worked and lived.
They saw traumatic scenes every day and shared these with their colleagues.
It led to a “transferred victim state”, in which police officials attracted one another’s trauma, said Bezuidenhout.
In addition, police officials transferred energy from one situation to the next without dealing with it.
"At some point there is a trigger, the police official reacts and it becomes police heavy-handedness, or the police official acts with a group, loses his uniqueness and identity and does things in a group which he never would have done if he was alone.
"Our violent society is a mirror of what is going on in the police. Yet take the police out of the society for 24 hours and there would be chaos,” said Bezuidenhout.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cele-defends-heavy-handed-cops-20110510
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