Dear Editor
The Democratic Alliance condemns the second detainee escape in just over a week, this time from the Strand Magistrate’s Court, where three remand prisoners were reported as having vanished from a locked holding cell without any sign of forced entry.
The DA has already written to Lt Genl. Patekile requesting the Wynberg escape report and will now write to the Chairperson of the Select Committee on Security and Justice to urgently summon both the Western Cape Police Commissioner and the Minister of Correctional Services to account for these repeated failures.
This follows the Wynberg escape barely days ago and underscores the systemic rot and criminal collusion within SAPS. Recent incidents, including court orderlies in Cape Town and Somerset West arrested with drugs, reveal how criminal networks exploit weak controls to, inter alia, smuggle contraband through court cells and into prisons.
At a time when the Cape Flats have endured a deadly few days of shootings and violent crime, SAPS should be putting dangerous criminals behind bars, not letting them loose in society.
These incidents demand an independent investigation, which should include the City of Cape Town’s Metro Police. It highlights precisely why the devolution of policing and investigative powers to capable metros must happen urgently.
In a province where disciplinary dismissals of corrupt officers are often overturned by the Provincial Commissioner, many SAPS members now act with impunity, knowing there will be no consequences for misconduct and breaking the law.
Regards
Nicholas Gotsell MP
DA NCOP Member on Security & Justice