No ‘hotel’ cop shop
|Published
DEBACLE: Minister Mbalula says Muizenberg cop shop needs no revamp DEBACLE: Minister Mbalula says Muizenberg cop shop needs no revamp
Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said the R100 million police station planned for Muizenberg would not contribute to “radical transformation” because people living in the seaside suburb were having fun.
Mbalula’s comments come after his deputy, Bongani Mkongi, told the Khayelitsha community that the project had been scrapped.
But neither the police nor the Department of Public Works could confirm the cancellation.
“Why are we building a R100m police station in Muizenberg when people in Muizenberg are having fun?” Mbalula said during a media briefing in Pretoria on Tuesday.
“That is not radical transformation. It is biased transformation. Radical transformation is when you take the resources where they are needed.”
Mkongi alleged it was the DA which had commissioned the upgrade and extension of the Muizenberg station, and blamed the party for the debacle.
“Politically the DA signed for this ‘hotel’ in Muizenberg. They are the party of the whites, not the majority. They don’t represent the people on the ground,” he said.
But DA community safety spokesperson, Mireille Wenger, said Mkongi could not be further from the truth.
“Policing is an entirely national government function, as provided for by the constitution,” Wenger said.
“The decision of where and when police stations are built, and what budget is allocated for this purpose, rests solely with the national [ANC] government. But because the deputy minister could not defend his own department’s illogical decision to spend R100m on a ‘police palace’, instead of exercising leadership in the department he has instead decided to blame the DA.”
Wenger added that the DA-led Western Cape government had no legal mandate to determine the building of police stations; “this rests with the police and national Department of Public Works.
“In light of these facts, the [deputy] minister appears to be desperate and instead of taking responsibility for a bad decision made by his department, he has shifted the blame elsewhere - if he even knows where to assign blame.”