Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille has been denied permission to visit the Jeppestown police station as part of the DA’s anti-crime campaign.
Dianne Kohler Barnard, who speaks for the party on safety and security, said on Tuesday that an email received from Gauteng police Commissioner Perumal Naidoo confirms that permission was denied by acting police National Commissioner Tim Williams. No reason is given. It simply reads: ”The matter was referred to acting National Commissioner Williams for decision. The request was, however, not approved.”
”It is inexcusable that the leader of the Democratic Alliance should be denied access to a police station without so much as an explanation,” Kohler Barnard said.
”Ms Zille was fully prepared to sign an indemnity form had she been asked to do so. It would appear that political considerations are once again trumping the principles of transparency and accountability.”
Zille wanted to visit the Jeppestown police station on Friday evening to look at the challenges that police officers face both at the station and out on the streets. It was planned that she would spend two hours observing work in the charge office and two hours witnessing the South African Police Service on patrol in Jeppestown.
”DA MPs have been refused entry to a number of police stations,” Kohler Barnard said, ”despite the publication in the safety and security portfolio committee SAPS station monitoring tool that MPs are allowed to visit stations without permission. Minister [of Safety and Security Charles] Nqakula has also stopped answering parliamentary questions on shortages of police resources.
”This comes at a time when questions are increasingly being asked about the conditions that our many brave police officers work under. The DA has found, for example, that there is a serious shortage of bullet-proof vests at station level.”
Kohler Barnard added that she has written to Nqakula requesting that he urgently overturn the decision to allow Zille to carry out her visit to the Jeppestown police station on Friday night. — I-Net Bridge