DA calls on Minister Cele to act against Nkandla demonstrators for breaking lockdown regulations

6 July 2021

Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbite by Okkie Terblanche MP.

The DA is calling on the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, to take action against those demonstrators that flagrantly violated Level 4 lockdown regulations outside Nkandla over the weekend, in full view of multiple news cameras that broadcasted their defiance to the world.

These supporters of former president Jacob Zuma were allowed to gather in large numbers without any apparent social distancing, and with many of them not wearing their masks in full view of police officers who did little to enforce these lockdown regulations. Despite the Minister himself and his South African Police Service (SAPS) officials being all too happy to enforce these regulations on multitudes of vulnerable citizens who do not have political connections. These ordinary South Africans now holds criminal records for such serious crimes as buying formula for their sick new-born or darting onto a beach to fetch their toddler – police time well-spent.

If the ANC government cannot enforce its own regulations, then they must scrap it all together. This inaction of the police just demonstrated to every single South African that the Minister and his cronies in the ANC government does not care about people. They care about votes and power as it affords them plenty of opportunities of enrichment through corruption. People are only there to be cannon fodder in the political ploys of the ANC.

The DA also notes that Minister Cele and the National Police Commissioner General Kehla Sithole have written to the Constitutional Court indicating that they will not be taking any action against former president Zuma until his current litigation has been finalised or until such time that the Constitutional Court directs them otherwise.

This decision by the Minister smacks of another attempt to avoid enforcing the Constitutional Court’s order that Zuma should be arrested if he failed to hand himself over.

Clearly Minister Cele is reluctant to arrest his comrade, but his duty to the rule of law and the country should far outweigh his loyalty to a corrupt former president seeking to avoid paying for his many crimes.

Issued by Okkie Terblanche, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police, 6 July 2021