Ian Cameron says getting rid of ‘incompetent’ Cele first step in crime reduction

Speaking to The Citizen on Tuesday morning, Ian Cameron from Action Society, said police minister Bheki Cele is incompetent and doesn’t know what he is doing.

Last week, Cameron clashed with Cele during a crime imbizo held in Gugulethu. Cele lost his composure and told Cameron to shut up.

This after Cameron confronted Cele on the current crime and gender-based violence cases in the surrounding communities.

Reacting to the deployment of the police’s Tactical Response Team, commonly known as “Amaberethe” on Tuesday morning, Cameron said he doesn’t believe that will solve the crime problem.

“I think it’s trying to stick a bandage on a cut, figuratively speaking and on top of that it’s all big talk, it’s all just for waiting for the dust to settle…these things will happen again and again.

“We need a different kind of approach, we need decent crime intelligence in the area, in order to be proactive, we need to nail violent crime kingpins, we need to remove them from society and if they want to fight fire with fire, then so be it,” said Cameron.

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘You consider me a garden boy!’ – Cele berates crime activist

He said a skills audit, especially in the senior ranks of the SA Police Service (SAPS), need to be done to determine who was appointed because of political affiliation and who was appointed on merit.

The TRT team’s deployment follows a weekend of brutal killings at various taverns in Gauteng as well as in KwaZulu Natal (KZN).

Meanwhile, a policing expert who was also part of the Marikana panel of experts report, Themba Masuku said after such a tragic incident it’s normal for government to try to reassure communities that it cares and that it is in control by deploying elite units.

“The purpose is to calm, stabilize and signal to communities state power and that government is still in control.

“TRT is a specialized and highly trained unit to deal with high-risk incidents involving firearms. However, that it is deployed after the fact is cold comfort to the 21 lives lost,” Masuku said.

He said the issue perhaps is around the intelligence and role of communities in working with the police in preventing these crimes from taking place.

“Questions are being asked and correctly so regarding what information was available and why our intelligence was not able to pick this and prevent it from happening.

“However, the role of communities in working with police has become critical and police need to work harder to regain the confidence of communities to prevent crimes before they even take place,” Masuku said.

Masuku stressed that factors that lead to violence which include among other, poverty, inequality and youth unemployment, need to be addressed urgently

Since the weekend’s killings which claimed the lives of 21 patrons, there have only been two arrests made so far in KZN.