Ryan Coetzee

Today was a reminder of how far the policing system has been allowed to fall behind the needs of the people it is meant to protect. This morning Nicholas and I attended proceedings at the Wynberg Court in Cape Town, where the accused in the case relating to the attack on us in Philippi on 19 August 2025 once again appeared. We were there to send a simple message: court cases can take long and the process can be frustrating, but victims and complainants must not give up. After court, we went straight to Philippi East Police Station for an unannounced oversight visit because Philippi East is where we were attacked. What we found was deeply worrying. Philippi East SAPS serves more than 250 000 people across more than 15 informal settlements. Yet out of 26 vehicles allocated to the station, only 3 are currently working. Around 10 vehicles are at garages, while others are waiting to be towed, have been boarded, or are simply unusable. In an area struggling with violent crime, gangs and extortion, this directly affects response times, visible policing and the safety of communities. We then did a spot visit at Lentegeur Police Station near Mitchells Plain. It was a relief to see a station where most vehicles are working, on the road and well kept. We will still do a more detailed visit there soon. After that we visited the Nyanga FCS unit, the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences unit. This unit serves SAPS stations in Manenberg, Philippi, Athlone, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Samora Machel and Lansdowne. The situation there was just as worrying. The unit has only around 20% of the staff it actually needs. Only 4 out of 11 vehicles are working. Most disturbing was that the unit does not currently have rape kits available to collect forensic evidence from rape victims. We were told this appears to be part of a wider provincial shortage. This is the result of poor leadership and incompetent management by both national and provincial SAPS Supply Chain Management. It means the seven stations served by this FCS unit are left without one of the most basic forensic tools needed in rape cases, where evidence must be collected quickly and correctly. We already know that the national Divisional Commissioner for Supply Chain Management, Lieutenant General Dr Molefe Fani, was recently suspended amid previous corruption allegations relating to his time at National Treasury. He is also one of the key figures linked to allowing access to SAPS for the controversial Cat Matlala matter. When procurement fails, victims pay the price. If Gender-Based Violence and Femicide was truly treated as the national disaster the President declared it to be, these specialised units would not be working under conditions like this. They would not be critically understaffed, they would not be without working vehicles, and they certainly would not be left without rape evidence kits. Oversight is not about boardrooms and presentations. It is about seeing the real conditions under which police officers and specialised investigators are expected to protect communities. The people of the Cape Flats deserve better, and the dedicated SAPS members trying to work under these conditions deserve far better support from leadership and government. I had the privilege of also bumping into this team from the law-enforcement advancement program (LEAP) in Philippi East, their energy was contagious! IC

Well die he did. With ICASA’s response today this thing is dead in the water and his party’s ambition to reverse BEE and open us up further to national security risks with it