Dear Editor
The DA in the Western Cape is outraged by the latest example of rot within the South African Police Service: a SAPS constable caught working with gangsters has escaped with barely a slap on the wrist, and the Police Commissioner himself signed off on it.
This was confirmed to the DA in official written correspondence from the Provincial Police Commissioner, Lt. Genl. Thembisile Patekile.
It’s yet another reason we are renewing our call for a complete overhaul of the SAPS disciplinary code. We cannot fight crime in our communities while corrupt officers are shielded from consequences.
In 2021, Const. Mohammed was caught transporting drugs in a marked SAPS vehicle, with a known gang leader in the passenger seat.
Despite a disciplinary tribunal recommending his dismissal, Commissioner Patekile personally intervened and downgraded the sanction to a two-month suspension without pay. That’s it. This isn’t justice. It’s protection.
And it sends a chilling message: if you’re in uniform and help drug dealers, the system won’t punish you. It might protect you.
The DA will submit parliamentary questions to uncover every disciplinary sanction amended or watered down by Lt. Genl. Patekile during his tenure. Each case will be scrutinised.
In any credible police service, an officer caught red-handed with gangsters would be fired, prosecuted, and publicly condemned. But under Patekile, Mohammed’s actions have been downplayed, at the cost of the very communities SAPS is meant to protect.
The Commissioner’s justification — that the employment relationship “had not irretrievably broken down” — is an insult to every honest officer and to every resident betrayed by those sworn to protect them.
What more needs to “break” that relationship than being caught, in uniform, with a gangster, moving drugs in a state vehicle?
This decision does more to erode public trust in SAPS than any criminal on the street ever could. It breaks the bond between police and community. No slogan about “community policing” can fix that.
The people of the Cape Flats deserve a police service that fights gangs. Not one that works with them.
Regards
Nicholas Gotsell MP
DA NCOP Member on Security & Justice