this city
Marianne Merten
The police have spent a vast amount of the money allocated to Operation Good Hope, aimed at breaking the cycle of violence in the Cape Peninsula, on transport and providing bodyguards to protect detectives assigned to it.
Financial statements in the possession of the Mail & Guardian show just more than R2,5- million of the R7,5-million budgeted from January 26 to March 25 – the end of the financial year – has been spent . There has been no budgetary planning to cover the campaign since, although operations have continued.
Meanwhile, after a period of relative quiet, the violence seems to have resumed. Since the beginning of April at least six people have been gunned down in what police say are “incidents related to the ongoing Cape Flats conflict”.
The money for Operation Good Hope comes out of the national policing budget, while the Western Cape provincial finance head approves expenditure.
The head of Operation Good Hope, Assistant Commissioner Ganief Daniels, says there have been some difficulties spending the money because of the extent of the operation. During the first phase of the anti-urban terrorism campaign, several different ideas were tried out and cash was spent conservatively.
Said Daniels: “The money was made available not just to be spent, but to be spent wisely.”
Now that the operation is in its second phase, money will be spent on getting communities involved. More cash from the national government is on its way to finance the operation, which is set to continue for at least two months.
Money was paid out within two weeks of the operation’s launch on tyres worth R45 000. >From the documents it also emerges that the budget pays for repairs to vehicles from other provinces.
In February, eight vehicles were repaired at a cost of R15 000 following a verbal agreement. Thirty vehicles from other parts of South Africa were repaired at the expense of the operation in March.
A close look at the budget shows most of the money has gone on personnel costs, including overtime and night shift allowances.
Nearly a million of the R1 679 904 allocated to overtime payments has been paid out. However, R455 600 has been left unused from the budget of R826 321 for standby duty, night shifts and danger pay.
Much of this budget allocation also goes towards providing bodyguards for several of the detectives seconded to the operation following the January killing of Captain Bennie Lategan, a key investigator for Operation Good Hope.
Just more than a third of the budgeted R1 083-million for administration costs has been spent on reinforcements – both police and troops – from outside the Western Cape. Although no budget has been set aside for communication, R34 208 has been spent on it.
Roughly half of the R7,5-million budget (R3 751 536,27) was allocated for transport. This includes bringing down Nyalas and 4x4s from, for example, Nelspruit, Pretoria, Potchefstroom and Port Elizabeth to Cape Town, at a cost of R5 per kilometre. It also includes payment per kilometre for operational deployment of these vehicles to the tune of nearly R2- million.
Only the allocated budget for air services was exceeded: R47 588 set aside for helicopters, and R205 474 spent.
Observers say it seems as if resources handed out for Operation Good Hope have been used for normal policing in the Western Cape – and not, as intended, to tackle acts of urban terrorism which killed at least 225 people and injured 475 last year alone.
The anti-urban terror police fight was launched following a series of bomb blasts that hit the mother city’s CBD late last year, and a pipe bomb attack at Planet Hollywood in the V&A Waterfront at the end of August. When a second explosion – this time a car bomb – hit the Waterfront on New Year’s Day, the national government went into action.
A multimillion-rand budget was approved after repeated complaints from the Western Cape provincial government that it did not have the necessary resources to fight “urban terrorism”.
The six victims murdered since the beginning of this month include Mitchells Plain-based 28s gang boss Glen Khan, who was killed with one of his bodyguards in a drive-by shooting, and Athlone businessman Adam Vinoos, whose gun shop allegedly supplied questionable firearms to members of neighbourhood watches and People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad).
It also includes the shooting of three women at point-blank range in a Grassy Park hairdressing salon. A witness claims to have heard one of the gunmen say he had struck because the owner, Adielah Davids, “had not stopped dealing drugs”.
There have been steps towards fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. On Wednesday detectives arrested Pagad member Anwar Francis in connection with the audacious walk-in robbery at the Claremont police station. He had been released on bail following his arrest in connection with another pipe bomb incident.
Police attached to Operation Good Hope a couple of months ago recovered bulletproof vests, ammunition and several firearms from the Claremont police station under some bushes on an open piece of veld on the Cape Flats.
Earlier this week an anonymous phone call led police to Milnerton where they found a white VR6 Jetta allegedly linked to the killing of Khan, Vinoos and Athlone businessman Rafiek Parker, who was gunned down outside his home. A red Courier bakkie allegedly stolen after the killing of the three women in Grassy Park was also recovered.
Acting head of detective services Director Leonard Knipe has gone on record as saying a lot of work is still ahead. But a top police official says for the first time they have strong evidence which will hopefully lead to a court conviction.
Yet there seems to be confusion within the allocation of policing resources to the anti-urban terrorism campaign. In many ways there is no clear delineation of Operation Good Hope staff and normal policing functions.
Although station-based detectives initially may pick up dockets of drive-by shootings, investigators attached to the operation frequently take over. Many of the police officials seconded to the fight against urban terrorism are also continuing their normal policing functions.
Says Operation Good Hope representative Anine de Beer: “All of us are linked to Good Hope. It’s a Western Cape project.”
But the sharing of information and co- operation between the intelligence and detective components remain notoriously unreliable. Although the operation is supposed to be intelligence driven, the intelligence component seems to play second fiddle, with detectives reportedly uninterested in intelligence briefings. Lack of communication appears entrenched.
In the face of attacks on investigators, resumed violence and a lack of successful prosecutions, many are continuing to ask whether Operation Good Hope should not be called Operation No Hope.