MEC burglary political?

2007-02-20 10:23

Bheki Mbanjwa

Durban - KwaZulu-Natal Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC, Bheki Cele has "not ruled out" the possibility that the burglary on his uMhlanga (Durban North) house at the weekend could have been politically motivated.

Cele, whose house was burgled on Saturday afternoon while he was attending an ANC meeting, told the Witness on Monday that the burglars had shown "an interest in information that was in some of the documents" that were kept in the house.

"Most documents were upside down suggesting that somebody had gone through those," he said.

Cele's laptop was also stolen during the robbery. Other items stolen included a plasma screen TV, a home theatre system and his wrist watch. The value of the stolen items is not yet known but is believed to run into tens of thousand of rands.

Bolster crime fight

KZN opposition political parties, the DA and the IFP have also reacted to the burglary. The IFP said it hoped that the incident would prompt the ANC-led provincial government to bolster the fight against crime.

IFP MPL, Lionel Mtshali said that the burglary was "proof that crime is out of control" in the country. "This incident has certainly brought home - if you excuse the pun - the point that crime is out of control in this province and country," Mtshali said.

Referring to Cele as a "crime denialist", DA safety and security spokesperson, Radley Keys said that his party hoped the incident would serve as a wake-up call to the government.

"We hope that his immediate reaction is not to bolster security around his house but to ensure that security is jerked up for all South Africans living in the province. It is unacceptable that ordinary citizens are getting robbed, but it is also unacceptable that Cele should get robbed."

Cele refused to comment on the DA and IFP statements saying that "those are their perceptions and they have a right to say whatever they like".

Asked whether the burglary on his house was an indication that crime had spiralled out of control in the province and in the country, Cele declined to comment, saying that State President, Thabo Mbeki and the KZN Premier, Sbu Ndebele had already made statements on that, referring to Mbeki's State of the Nation address and Ndebele's state of the province address.

During his state of the province address, Ndebele handled the issue of crime cautiously. "The question that says 'do you agree that crime is out of control?' has a problem. If you say no, you are said to be denying the existence of crime."

"If you say yes, you are suggesting that the national assembly, the provincial legislatures and municipalities have all failed in their tasks to deal with crime. This is an ideological trap. Crime is too serious a matter for ideological games," Ndebele had said.

Cele said that he had had no security personnel in his house in the past, but planned to change this. "Right now the front door is sealed off and as soon as that is fixed I will go back to the house and live a normal life like I did before [the burglary]," he told The Witness.

SAPS spokesperson, Senior Superintendent Phindile Radebe confirmed that the police had opened a case of housebreaking. She said no arrests had been made and that investigations into the matter were ongoing.

- The Witness