Billionaire businessman Johann Rupert’s comments in the Oval Office this week on gang violence on the Cape Flats have sparked a fierce debate over prioritising crimes based on race.
Rupert was part of the high-powered delegation accompanying President Cyril Ramaphosa in his bilateral meeting with his US counterpart, Donald Trump.
“We have too many deaths, and it’s across the board; it’s not only white farmers,” he told Trump.
Rupert then turned to DA leader John Steenhuisen and said: “Mr Steenhuisen won’t admit to it, but he runs the Western Cape where I live. The biggest murder rate is in the Cape Flats. Gangs. We’ve got gang warfare.”
The discussion between the two presidents and their entourages had been dominated by false claims that Afrikaner farmers were targeted due to their race for mass killing, which has been described as “white genocide” by Trump and senior members of his administration.
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the most powerful way to fix the issue of crime is to devolve criminal investigation powers down to metro police and law enforcement.
“Mr Rupert knows fully well that the entire criminal justice chain from policing, investigation, prosecution to incarceration in the prison system is entirely in the hands of the national government from beginning to end,” he said.
Hill-Lewis continued: “We are supposed to, constitutionally, do traffic and by-law enforcement. Over the years, we have greatly expanded beyond traffic and by-law enforcement to try and stand in the gap, and to fill the huge gap between the policing that South Africa needs and the policing that South Africa has.”
He said if Rupert wanted to be helpful, he should support the call for the devolution of criminal investigative powers down to the metro police and law enforcement.
Cape Muslim Congress leader and City of Cape Town councillor Yagyah Adams was hopeful that now, after Trump belittled Ramaphosa and Steenhuisen, they might listen, as they had not done so for many years while murders increased.
He added: “Why do we pay so much in taxes and rates, yet ordinary citizens have no sense of security in South Africa?”
Adams said every year, thousands of people are murdered, and those in authority keep talking.
“Nothing changes, and murder increases. Everyone is angry, whites, blacks, brown, Muslims, and Christians. Why must innocent people be killed? Does it matter if they are white farmers or black accountants?” he asked.
According to Adams, the colour, culture, ethnicity, and religion of criminals are irrelevant.
“Their crime is the problem,” he insisted.
Adams claimed that crime is pervasive due to the ANC’s failures in South Africa.
“The ANC destroyed every opportunity they had for nation-building because they were too busy with petty and selfish issues.
“The issue of crime can easily be handled, but the major political parties are not moral or God-fearing, so they deliberately tolerate criminality and often encourage and inspire criminality,” he said.
At the White House meeting with Trump, Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi said South Africa was a violent nation but crime knew no colour.
“The problem in South Africa is not necessarily about race but crime,” she explained, adding that the country needed assistance with technology to fight crime.
