Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula’s remarks on crime were almost on a par with Jimmy Kruger’s pronouncement on the death of black activist Steve Biko, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Saturday.
Leon was speaking to several hundred people at a DA rally in Cape Town’s coloured suburb of Tafelsig, where his party is facing off against the Independent Democrats in a city council by-election.
He said Nqakula’s attack in Parliament this week on ”whingers” about crime, and his suggestion that they should leave the country, rubbed salt in the wounds of crime victims and their families.
”I thought it was outrageous,” Leon said. ”It is almost on a par with what the former minister of police Jimmy Kruger said about Steve Biko’s murder leaving him cold.”
Biko, a black-consciousness leader, died in 1977 after being assaulted in police detention, while Kruger was in office.
Leon said that on the day Nqakula made his remarks in Parliament, he [Leon] had been with the family of murdered actor Brett Goldin.
”I could take you to any community anywhere in South Africa of any colour group and show you people who have been outraged by the way government has neglected the fight again crime,” he said.
Commenting on statements by Nqakula’s office that his words had been directed specifically at DA politicians, not at the general public, Leon said the opposition parties in Parliament represent about 2,5-million voters, and speak on behalf of ”millions and millions” of crime-ridden South Africans.
”The minister can explain and contextualise it as much as he likes.
”He is arrogant, he is indifferent, he’s never been into the communities on his own, he never leaves his office without surrounding himself with four or five bodyguards, he has 24-hour VIP surveillance.
”He doesn’t come and walk among the people like we [do] at Tafelsig. He doesn’t know what it’s like to face murder; he doesn’t know what it’s like to be robbed; he doesn’t know what it’s like to have a knife held to you.”
He said Nqakula has lost touch with any communities he claims to represent.
On election issues, Leon told the DA supporters that the reason the African National Congress has not put up a candidate in the ward is that it is not interested in the Tafelsig community.
If the DA candidate, Sheval Arendse, wins Wednesday’s poll, the slender majority enjoyed by the DA-led multiparty government in the 210-seat council will increase to three.
Arendse was elected to the seat in the March 1 local government elections on an ID ticket, but resigned when the ID backed the ANC in the council in a bid to topple mayor Helen Zille.
Leon told the crowd that ID leader Patrica de Lille has rejected with contempt the mandate she had received from the voters. ”The ID in this election is just the ANC’s shop-window dummy,” he said.
Earlier, before his arrival in Tafelsig, there was a low-key confrontation between DA and ID supporters when a convoy of ID vehicles, with De Lille at the head, drew up alongside the grounds where the DA supporters and a minstrel band were gathering.
The ID supporters left their vehicles, and waved posters and exchanged badinage with the DA members before leaving again. — Sapa