EFF CONDEMNS USE OF WATER-CANNONS ON SASSA GRANT RECIPIENTS

Friday, 15 January 2021

The EFF condemns with disgust the scenes at the South African Social Services Agency (SASSA) offices in Bellville, Cape Town, in which cowardly thugs of the South African Police Service (SAPS) used water cannons on elderly and vulnerable grant recipients.

In the presence of the moronic Minister of a Social Development Lindiwe Zulu, who displayed lack of common decency by addressing grant recipients from inside of a police van, police fired cold and dirty water on people who had come to resolve matters relating to their delayed grants.

We have long warned South Africans of SAPS, that seems to have a deep desire of mimicking the behaviour of Apartheid police, through the disdain and violence they practice against black people and the poor. There is absolutely no logic or rationale for using brute force to ensure social distancing by the elderly who went to SASSA to speed up the process of receiving much needed relief to alleviate the painful impact of poverty.

All of the police officers involved in the despicable act must be suspended with immediate effect, lest SAPS thinks it can operate with impunity in this country. We cautioned South Africans when police officers did their heinous acts at Brackenfell, that a police force that engages citizens with unwarranted violence and force must never be celebrated, no matter how we feel about those who are at the receiving end of police brutality.

It comes as no surprise that these police, who were seen firing water cannons at the elderly are in Cape Town, where police are too cowardly to fight crime in Mitchell's Plein and Khayelitsha, and to enforce regulations in the leafy suburbs of Waterfront and Camps Bay, yet can target the weak and vulnerable.

We reiterate our long held position against police brutality, and commit once again to retaliate to SAPS with the full force of community activism that resembles the brave generation of the anti-Apartheid movement, if they want to behave like Apartheid machinery.

The patience of our people is wearing thin with South African police and the God-complex they have inherited from Bheki Cele. If they continue to test us, under the supervision of Ministers in this country who are failing at delivering basic services such as grants, there must never be outrage when we treat them with the same disdain.

Statement issued by the EFF, 15 January 2021

Please keep your distance implores Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu from inside a police armoured vehicle at #Sassa Bellville. @TeamNews24 pic.twitter.com/MgDdpXLShp

— Jenni Evans (@itchybyte) January 15, 2021