JUSTICE MALALA | Bheki Cele a danger to SA's stability and should not be in his job

Even by our country’s shockingly low standards, police minister Bheki Cele should not be in his job. Neither should whoever the intelligence minister is supposed to be these days (remember that the position was absorbed into the ever-expanding presidency in 2021). They, and pretty much the entire security cluster, are a danger to the stability of South Africa.

Nothing illustrates this as clearly and urgently as the terrorist acts of the past week. Truck drivers were attacked, trucks were torched and major national roads shut down. These terror acts are a case of the authorities knowing who the most likely perpetrators of a crime are, knowing they will repeat their dastardly acts and folding their arms and whistling away while they destroy the country.

Here is what we know about all this: the July 2021 riots started with the burning of trucks on the N2. Those first acts were well organised, extensively planned and were effective in shutting down a major national transport artery. After those first attacks the social media messages to destroy, loot and cause mayhem spread like wildfire while the police ministry, the intelligence services, the presidency and the defence ministry sat on their hands and did nothing.

Any self-respecting police minister would have ensured that the criminal trucking networks that were identified in 2021 are monitored for any sign of a repeat of what happened then.

The consequences are that 354 people died because of these officials’ failure to anticipate the riots and to act swiftly and decisively when they happened. Does anyone care today, just two years later, that South Africa faced an insurrection in 2021? Not, it seems, the powers that be.

Any self-respecting police minister would have ensured that the criminal trucking networks that were identified in 2021 are monitored for any sign of a repeat of what happened then. Basic work such as this was seemingly not done because the same suspects and the same organisations that emerged in 2022 are implicated in last week’s mayhem. The modus operandi is the same, the links to the nefarious pro-Jacob Zuma and xenophobic organisations are the same, and the leaders of these organisations are the same. The WhatsApp groups they use are the same, too.

Worse, it was not the police who did the work that led to the apprehension of three of the alleged perpetrators of last week’s crimes. It was a private security firm.

The continued tenure and, indeed, flourishing of the careers of people like Cele is because we are not a serious country. We are not a serious people with serious leaders. We are a country whose leaders are mainly interested in using their power to acquire government tenders and grants for their sons and daughters. And in this unserious place the untalented and unworthy end up in positions they have no business being in. Seriously, has Cele distinguished himself in a parliamentary or provincial role in safety and security? Cele’s main achievement, it would seem to me, has been being kicked upstairs every time he failed at something.

What must South Africans think of their police now? Famed footballer Senzo Meyiwa was murdered in front of numerous witnesses in 2014. Nine years later the police can’t organise themselves enough to put together one strong criminal case against his killers. At one point there were two different dockets and teams on the case. The rapper AKA was murdered in February. Few who hear Cele make big promises about arresting the perpetrators believe him. Cele is the minister of big talk, not arrests. His record speaks for itself: most categories of crime have worsened during his tenure. South Africans are on their own.

President Ramaphosa has been moaning that no postapartheid administration has faced the kinds of challenges he has. I would have some sympathy for him if he wasn’t the architect of his own problems. Take the 2021 riots, for example. After such a serious security breach one would have expected Ramaphosa to crack the whip. He didn’t. Instead, Cele is still in his position and others have been kicked upstairs. Ramaphosa is like a football coach who arrives at a beleaguered club and proceeds to sit in the stands, moaning, as if he is not in charge of the team.

Because we do not take our security threats seriously and have not placed serious people in positions to deal with them, South Africa will very likely face yet another implosion of the nature of July 2021.

This lack of urgency and seriousness on the president’s part has made it laughably easy to predict South Africa’s political and economic trajectory. Because we do not take our security threats seriously and have not placed serious people in positions to deal with them, South Africa will very likely face yet another implosion of the nature of July 2021. Because we do not take our place in the world seriously and have become pals with dictators who do not respect international law, our political and economic relationships with many western countries will be negatively impacted. These are the results of a lack of seriousness in dealing with our challenges.

We need to be serious people, running a serious country. Right now, we are just like Cele, a man who is universally considered a joke and a clown.