DA renews bid to control W Cape police

The party has bristled at billionaire Johann Rupert's remarks that the Cape Flats are the epicentre of South Africa's violent crime problem

- Mandisa Nyathi

The Democratic Alliance again called for the devolution of policing powers to the Western Cape, arguing that the centralised control of the South African Police Service (SAPS) has failed people plagued by violent crime, particularly on the Cape Flats.

This renewed push follows remarks made by billionaire businessman Johann Rupert during a meeting between a South African delegation led by President Cyril Ramaphosa and United States President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week.

Rupert described the Cape Flats as the epicentre of South Africa's violent crime problem and endorsed the idea of provinces taking greater control over policing functions. He also advocated for the use of advanced technologies such as Starlink — a satellite internet system developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX — to boost real-time communication, surveillance and modernise crime fighting in neglected areas.

The DA, which controls the Western Cape, has bristled at Rupert's comments, which were meant to convey that crime affects all parts of South Africa, including what is arguably the best-run province in the country.

"He [Rupert] knows full well that the criminal justice system ... is in the control of the national state," said the party's spokesperson on policing, Ian Cameron, who also chairs parliament's portfolio committee on police.

Cameron called Rupert's comments "misleading" and said it was "completely false" that the DA controlled the police in the Western Cape, calling for policing powers to be devolved to the province.

Barely two days after the Oval Office meeting, in which Trump accused South Africa of perpetrating a "white genocide", Police Minister Senzo Mchunu released the country's latest crime statistics, which showed that nearly 90% of the country's gang murders occur in the Western Cape.