THE DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Monday that the expert panel report into the July unrest is evidence enough for President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire his police and intelligence cluster ministers.
The damning report was released on Monday.
The report provides a ‘disturbing’picture of the security cluster’s unpreparedness to deal with the looting and violence which affected Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The report concluded that security services failed to respond timeously to the unrest.
The DA urged Ramaphosa to fire Police Minister Bheki Cele as well as Ayanda Dlodlo, who previously served as state security minister.
At the height of the unrest, Dlodlo and Cele were at odds after Cele denied receiving intelligence reports from State Security ministry.
“At the very least, Minister of Police Bheki Cele and then Minister of Intelligence Ayanda Dlodlo must be dropped from Cabinet immediately and entirely. In a functional democracy, their heads would have rolled long ago,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said.
Steenhuisen said the report proves that state security should be removed from the Presidency, and be independent.
In response to the unrest last year, Ramaphosa moved the state security ministry to his office.
The agency now reports to Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele.
“Second, this report contains more than enough evidence for why an independent, credible and accountable state security apparatus is essential.
“The State Security Agency must be removed from the Presidency and reformed as per the recommendations of the 2018 High-Level Review Panel report into the State Security Agency, which has mostly been collecting dust till now,” Steenhuisen said.
He said “the DA would pursue every avenue available to us to ensure that those who failed South Africa are held accountable.”
- * Inside Politics
