There is no reason to replace him: Ramaphosa defends Cele

President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended police minister Bheki Cele and a reported R2bn spent to provide security to cabinet members and other top-ranking officials.

This comes after DA leader John Steenhuisen called for Cele to be axed. 

He said the police minister was unable to provide the leadership the police service required and was spending scarce public resources instead of fighting crime. 

According to Steenhuisen, since Cele became minister in February 2018, the SA Police Service (SAPS) had racked up an annual bill of R600m on catering and accommodation, an average of R1.4m a day. 

“Over the same time period, SAPS has reduced its front-line personnel, detectives and reservists, while more and more citizens are being raped and murdered,” the DA leader said. 

In a written response, Ramaphosa said the expenditure was incurred to fulfil the constitutional and statutory responsibilities of the police.

Like all other expenditure in the SAPS budget, catering and accommodation were a normal part of the cost of running a police service.

“This includes instances where officials have to be accommodated away from their normal place of work due to specific operational needs and deployment requirements,” Ramaphosa said. 

“Examples in recent years include public order interventions in various provinces, securing the national and local government elections, deployments in response to Covid-19 and the July 2021 unrest.

“There is no reason to replace a minister on the basis of expenditure that forms part of the operational requirements of the police service.”

Steenhuisen said the government spent almost R2bn of the SAPS budget, which equates to about R8m a year, to protect cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and other top-ranking politicians.

Ramaphosa said this was justified.

“It is a well-established principle in jurisdictions across the world that the state should provide adequate protection to officials whose personal safety may be at risk by virtue of the positions they occupy,” said Ramaphosa. 

He said the budget for VIP protection services, which accounts for less than 2% of the SAPS budget, includes:

• Providing comprehensive protection to himself and deputy president David Mabuza, former presidents and deputy presidents, visiting heads of state and spouses.
• Providing comprehensive protection to 62 national dignitaries (28 ministers, 34 deputy ministers, the speaker and deputy speaker of parliament, chairperson and deputy chairperson of the NCOP) and 124 provincial dignitaries (nine premiers, nine provincial legislature speakers, nine provincial legislature deputy speakers and 87 MECs), as well as ad hoc and foreign dignitaries.

Chief justice Raymond Zondo, former chief justices, Constitutional Court justices, judge presidents and the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) also received comprehensive protection.

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