The Select Committee on Security and Justice was wrapping up its meeting with the Deputy Police Minister, Cassel Mathale, and Western Cape Provincial Commissioner, Lt-Gen Thembisile Patekile, on police escapees, when a petty quarrel ensued.
Image: Screenshot / Parliament TV
As the Select Committee on Security and Justice was wrapping up its meeting with the Deputy Police Minister, Cassel Mathale, and Western Cape Police Commissioner, Lt-Gen Thembisile Patekile, on police escapees, a petty quarrel ensued between committee members.
The Select Committee on Security and Justice met on Wednesday to hear a presentation on escapees from police custody in South Africa, and especially the Western Cape. However, due to the State of the Nation Address (SONA) debate, several committee meetings have had to conclude proceedings faster than usual.
The committee meeting began with a presentation on the One Stop Border Post Bill by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), then at 11.30am, the committee was briefed on escapees, which would take proceedings until 1pm.
During the Q&A section of the meeting, committee Chairperson Jane Mananiso informed Patekile that he only had three minutes to give remarks, to which he obliged.
It had been expected that he was also going to deliver a presentation to the committee.
Due to the time constraint felt by the afternoon’s SONA debate, EFF MP Virgill Gericke initially brought up the suggestion of submitting questions to SAPS officials for them to, in turn, give written responses to the committee.
“Sorry, can I please make a proposal, if you allow me? Can I propose closure? I’ll tell you why. It is past 1pm. We still need to have lunch, then we move over to the dome,” Gericke said.
“So we have limited time. If I propose closure, can we put our outstanding questions in writing? It can be forwarded to the commissioners, then. Just a proposal?”
Mananiso said: “As I said, Gericke, let's take these questions for submission. And then they will write to us.
“The reason why I said that is because we are live, and people have an interest in what is happening with regard to the topical issues that we've been dealing with. Hence, I'm saying, yes, we don't want to be calling SAPS again for escapes. We must be speaking on other issues, knowing that we are monitoring what they said to us,” Mananiso said.
EFF MP Virgill Gericke.
Image: Supplied
DA MP Nicholas Gotsell.
Image: File
DA MP Nicholas Gotsell raised the issue of having two presentations presented to them, and not wanting to submit questions on a presentation they had not received.
“Chair, I'm slightly confused. Firstly, because, as you said in your opening, and as the agenda reflects, we're here today to hear from both the acting minister, or (rather) the deputy minister, and the provincial police commissioner.
“And that is why there are two slides, two sets of slides… I just want to say that I am not prepared to pose questions on the second set of slides, which has not been presented to us.
“Because I have waited two months. The request for this meeting was issued at the end of November, five sets of escapes happened in a very short period of time in the Western Cape,” Gotsell said.
“All of them at well-established police precincts… And I'm not prepared for us to defer that to written questions.
“I’m here today to ask the provincial police commissioner about those escapes.”
Gotsell, when the meeting was about to conclude, stressed to Mananiso that he wanted to put it on record that the Select Committee “chose to have lunch over discussing serious problems in the Western Cape”.
“And you yourself had said that when you get off the aeroplane, and you come from the airport, the Western Cape is a crime scene.
“We have the Western Cape Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile, here today, and he said one sentence.”
Western Cape Police Commissioner Thembisile Patekile.
Image: Armand Hough / Independent Newspapers
To which Gericke responded: “I have proposed that the time is against us, because we normally work on a set schedule, whereby we conclude our meetings at 1 o'clock.
“We are not prioritising lunch above the business, but we must adhere to and oblige by the schedule at hand.
“If we go on up until 2 o'clock, then we will, first and foremost, be late for the (SONA) sitting, and secondly, we won't be able to have a break or lunch or whatever the colleague wants to call it.
“I think your request is a reasonable request for those questions that did not get answers here today, is to submit it in writing, because we are not engaged in a hearing, where you say, and I say, and you say, and I say.”
theolin.tembo@inl.co.za