Independent Media hosted a pre-election panel discussion with political party representatives at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town on Friday.
Political analyst and Cape Times columnist, Nkosikhulule Nyembezi moderated the discussion.
Watch the full debate here.
As parties explained their manifestos and plans for voters should they be elected in power, some parties did not miss the opportunity at taking a jab at each other.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), the governing party in the Western Cape has been calling for the devolution of policing powers in the Western Cape for some time.
Previously, Premier Alan Winde stated the devolution of police powers would enable the province to exercise policing powers beyond mere monitoring and oversight, which has to date been the norm.
Representing the DA, Western Cape MEC for Police Oversight and Community Safety, Reagan Allen was on the panel.
Questions coming from the audience focused on the high crime rate in the province.
Allen stated that the province had its bloodiest week at the end of March leading into April when the province recorded 120 murders.
He also highlighted that the Western Cape is the only province that has a Court Watch Brief (CWB) Unit which monitors gender-based violence cases and police and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) inefficiencies.
“When we talk about the policing powers, we don’t really want the powers to have powers. We want the powers closer to the people. The policing needs and priorities can be taken into account. Currently, choices for Hillview, are being made in Pretoria - 9,50km away from where we are sitting,” Allen said.
The crowd grew rowdy as Allen continued to make his point.
Leader of the National Coloured Congress (NCC), Fadiel Adams brought up youth being criminalised mainly out of poverty has a devastating impact on their lives.
“At the age of 17, Wynberg, Court 4, I was actually found guilty of a crime for the first time in my life. But, the magistrate had the common sense to tell me: ‘I’m going to sentence you to community service as you have your whole life ahead of you’. Too many of our young men and girls are denied this opportunity by the justice system,” Adams said.
He said his party, the NCC, has a programme that is dedicated to scrapping young people non-violent records.
“It’s all over social media. It’s what we do,” he said.
Nyembezi asked how this would work and Adams said: “We actually have a team of people at our offices that is dedicated to work with our justice system to remove non-violent crimes. Only non-violent crimes, because so many of our people cannot find work because of small little thing,” Adams said.
He further stated there are level 16 political deployments that could pay up to 20 social workers.
“If only this bloated administration would let go of their political deployments we could actually fill positions,” he said.
Adams brought up that the DA failed to remove the head of police which was called for, for three years was only removed three months ago. He said the SSIU were incapable of catching the thieves that a plumber catches (referring to himself).
“You don’t deserve the right to police us because you can’t even police your own administration,” Adams added.
The other parties in attendance were ANC, A.C.C, ACDP, Bosa, EFF, GOOD, Al Jama-ah and Rise Mzansi.
robin.francke@iol.co.za
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