Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday surprised MPs when he told Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema that he feared “f****l”, during a question-and-answer session in Parliament.
Malema had questioned Ramaphosa about policing in South Africa and asked whether the president was afraid of removing under-fire Minister Bheki Cele.
“They [criminals] are no longer hiding. They are shooting people in broad daylight, in front of cameras. They no longer wear balaclavas. They don’t hide. The reason being there is no police in South Africa, and there is no visible policing in all suburbs and townships,” Malema said, according to News24.
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“The problem is that you have taken a person, who was the commissioner, and made him the minister. He has a competing interest of being a commissioner and the minister. He interferes with the powers of commissioners. I can guarantee you, you can appoint any commissioner, that person will never succeed as long as Bheki Cele is there.
“What is it that you are so scared about Bheki Cele? If you think he possesses a lot of support in KZN, why can’t you redeploy him and appoint a capable minister to fight crime? Crime is a nightmare.”
According to Sowetan Live, Ramaphosa later apologised for the statement and said he meant to say “niks” instead of “f****l”.
Cele recently said that he had no plans to resign from his position as police minister, but that he would “happily” do so if the president asked him to leave.
ALSO READ | ‘If the president asks me to resign, I’ll go,’ says Bheki Cele
Cele said this during an interview with JJ Tabane on eNCA’s Power To Truth
“I’m simply saying to you JJ that things in this environment did happen, I have that experience where I was there as a national commissioner.
“I believe that if somebody can do better they must come and do that… From the President it doesn’t even have to ask me to resign he can just ask me to go and I will go…happily so,” said Cele.
The minister was speaking following heavy criticism after an inquiry by a government-appointed panel into the handling of the July riots found that “there was a failure by the intelligence structures to anticipate and respond adequately to the violence”.
The panel said that the intelligence services “failed to predict the nature, scale and modus operandi” of the violence while at the same time, the police had “insufficient capacity” to curb it.
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Rampaging mobs overran dozens shopping malls and warehouses, carting away large flat screen television, refrigerators, leather couches and cartons of fresh meat.
Some even hammered down automatic teller machines and emptied them of cash.
“The police admitted that the large numbers were overwhelming,” the panel said.
In the aftermath of the July riots, Ramaphosa in February axed police commissioner Khehla Sitole.
The presidency said in a statement that his dismissal was “by mutual agreement” and in the “best interests of the country”.
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