Action Society welcomes the “resignation” of Bheki Cele.
Since April 2018, shortly after Bheki Cele was appointed until December 2023, South Africa saw 135 243 murders, of which at least 3 918 were children. That makes his tenure the bloodiest of any Police Minister before him. In the same period, 237 929 rapes and 1 038 566 burglaries were reported. Furthermore, the country reported – on average – five rapes per day and 237 929 in total under the hat of Cele.
“Since the inception of Action Society in 2019, we have called for the resignation of Bheki Cele as Minister of Police. He has repeatedly shown that he was not fit for the job and only stayed in this crucial position because of his connections,” said Juanita du Preez, Action Society spokesperson. “We are jubilant with the news of his ‘resignation’ and can only hope that his successor will be someone with a working knowledge of how the police should function, a clean background without any corruption links and a will to really tackle the abysmal state of crime in South Africa.”
Cele’s departure is by far not the only remedy for the crime situation in the country. We hope that the government will now also take note of our other suggestions on how to reform the police force so that it can function as mandated to protect South Africans. Action Society will continue to support victims of crime with the hope that under new police leadership, we will finally see a reduction in these horrible statistics.
SOUNDBITE: https://actionsociety.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Bheki-Cele-resigns.mp3
