Why the ANC is backing Patricia de Lille in shutting Special Investigation Unit
Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille has found an unlikely supporter for her decision to shut down the city council Special Investigation Unit: the ANC. The party’s Western Cape secretary‚ Faiez Jacobs‚ applauded De Lille on Wednesday for "standing up to the right-wing" mayoral committee member for safety and security‚ JP Smith‚ in shutting down the unit‚ which was assisting the FBI and the Hawks with an investigation into city centre nightclub shootings. However, Smith said high levels of gang violence in Cape Town were "a stain on the ANC’s wholesale failure to run the national police service"‚ which had 22‚000 staff in the Western Cape compared with the city council’s 550 metro police officers. "As a matter of principle‚ a good barometer of the right thing to do is to do the opposite of anything Faiez Jacobs argues for — it is likely to be wrong‚" he said. "Sadly‚ [he] has the impossible job of defending the ANC national government’s failure to give effect to their constitutional re...
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