The ANC and the GOOD Party have hit back at the recent comments made by the DA in a podcast where the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron, and Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, tackled the scale of crime and devolution of policing powers.

“The ANC single-handedly destroyed the South African Police Service. We should say it unapologetically,” said Cameron. “We’ve come to a point now, where, if we use the Hawks, for example, they are running at 47% capacity at the moment.”

Cameron said that over the last few months, it seems that people are bearing a bigger burden of fear and “we’re not in a good space”.

“So many people have become career criminals that they have perfected it in their space, and we really have a lot of difficult work ahead.”

Cameron said that in terms of the development of policing powers, “legislation already allows for it to be decentralised and local and provincial government to play more of a role, but in short, it is a national government competency”.

Cameron said that they do a lot of oversight, but that “you can’t turn the ship quickly enough, to stop the decline”.

Smith said that the SAPS is in a very difficult situation, and despite the well-intentioned individuals making an effort to make it work, the “organisation as a whole is in a very difficult space”.

“The figures that the provincial government in the Western Cape got recently show that we’ve atrophied another 2,000 staff (members), so yes, we’ll see the launch of 1,000s of members in a parade somewhere, but in the background, during that same time, we’re losing 1,500 (members).”

Cameron also highlighted how the ANC abuses the lack of clarity regarding where the police’s responsibilities lie.

“The ANC actually released a statement, I think two, three weeks ago, where they said that the Western Cape Government has failed etc. And I happened to sit next to the guy that released the statement last week on the plane, and he said, ‘I saw you reacted to my statement’. I said to him, ‘But you’re deliberately lying. Like, why would you do that?’ And he just laughed. So, there’s a deliberate attempt to mislead the people and create this perception,” Cameron said.

“One of the easiest ways to cause distrust in authorities is by misleading them with something like that, especially with crime. It’s such an emotive topic,” said Cameron.

Smith added that they have consistently written to a whole variety of channels for the exemption of powers.

“If we do not do crime prevention, it is still SAPS’s job… These failures have very real consequences.”

Leader of the Opposition in the Western Cape Provincial Legislature, Khalid Sayed, said that they stand firmly behind the statement that MPL, Benson Ngqentsu, made a few weeks ago, in relation to the DA’s devolution agenda.

“It’s dangerous, it’s actually compromising the fight against crime. Our approach remains that you must have an intergovernmental approach; the constitution makes provision for that.

“The Memorandum of Understanding, signed by both the City, the province, and the national government, makes provision for that. All spheres of government have their role to play. The DA in the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town have not played their role.

“While we have admitted, and we’ve made it very clear, that SAPS does need to do its work, it does need to ramp up, the solution is not devolution. We also believe that they are on a tirade to consistently undermine the image of SAPS,” said Sayed.

“That’s not good for the citizenry.”

Sayed said it is “quite shocking” that a chairperson of the portfolio committee of police can go and defend a provincial government and a City government when they are at fault.

“He is actually supposed to work with us in the province, regardless of political party.”

GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament, Brett Herron, said that the DA’s podcast comments ‘are a masterclass in political deflection, more interested in scoring points than saving lives’.

“While the DA continues to demand more power, it has consistently failed to use the powers it already has. The Western Cape’s Safety Plan, backed by billions in public funds, has failed to stem the tide of violence in communities like Philippi East, Mfuleni, and Kraaifontein, which remain among the deadliest places in South Africa. Since the Safety Plan’s inception, the murder rate has gone up, not down.

“The DA’s solution is to shift blame to the national government while ignoring its own failures in addressing the root causes of crime,” Herron said.

“Crime does not emerge in a vacuum. It thrives in communities where poverty, unemployment, trauma, addiction, and spatial injustice remain unresolved. But instead of investing in youth opportunities, housing, mental health services, and community partnerships, the Western Cape government hides behind policing rhetoric.

“GOOD does not oppose decentralisation. But the idea that devolving SAPS powers to the Western Cape will magically end gangsterism, without fixing the social and economic conditions that sustain it, is dangerous political theatre,” Herron said.

“Leadership means taking responsibility. The DA has had over 15 years in power in the province. If they want to talk about the ANC’s failures, they must also account for their own and explain why the province’s own safety plan is not delivering safer streets.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za

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