The row between Western Cape Community Safety MEC Dan Plato and the police has escalated to a national level.
|||Cape Town - The row between Community Safety MEC Dan Plato and police has escalated to a national level with the police ministry accusing him of “pure grandstanding” and trying to embarrass police in the province.
But Plato hit back, saying his intention was to ensure better policing and the only embarrassing thing was the way police were responding.
Last week tension between Plato and provincial police commissioner Arno Lamoer boiled over when Plato held a press conference and released statistics showing that in some parts of the Western Cape there were more than 3 000 people for every police officer.
Plato had said he got the statistics from Lamoer’s office, which Lamoer, who was not invited to the press conference, initially denied
On Tuesday Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s spokesman Zweli Mnisi said Plato had requested information in May about police personnel shortages from Lamoer.
“A detailed information update was sent to him. An understanding was that the MEC wanted to get a sense of understanding of the policing challenges, and at no point did he indicate that he intended to hold a media conference about this issue,” Mnisi said.
“What we are seeing here is pure grandstanding, of requesting information with an intention of embarrassing police rather than assisting. We do not need such approaches, but require people to put aside political affiliations and support in the fight against crime.”
He said Plato could have invited Lamoer to the police-to-population ratio press conference because Lamoer could have contextualised some of the police’s challenges. Last week Plato’s statistics showed that in Mitchells Plain the police-to-population ratio was 1:3 240.
Plato said the shortage of officers was impacting on crimes, including gang violence.
But Mnisi said the ratio in Mitchells Plain was 1:468.
“There may be human resource challenges and this is not unique to the Western Cape; however, if you look at the personnel challenges versus progress on a daily basis, you can see that things are improving.
“The notion that staff shortages are contributing factors to ongoing gang and violent protests are malicious and totally untrue.”
Mnisi said Plato attended regular Minmec meetings, between Mthethwa and MECs responsible for policing, but in most meetings Plato never raised issues.
Instead, Plato held press conferences afterwards where “we have this blatant attack on the work of the police”.
Plato’s spokesman Greg Wagner said that before a Minmec meeting, the department submitted a document about the policing needs for Mthethwa’s attention. The issues were:
* Sector policing not being implemented in many areas.
* Vigilante killings.
* Failures in investigations, resulting in drug and gang cases not being prosecuted.
* High absenteeism.
caryn.dolley@inl.co.za
Cape Times