COPE calls for head of police minister

By Ofentse Mokae
21 October 2009

Congress of the People has called for the immediate resignation of Police minister Nathi Mthethwa.

This follows recent reports that Mthethwa splurged in excess of R700 000 on hotel accommodation.

His department revealed that he spent over R200 000 of taxpayers money on 5 star accommodation in Cape Town.

He further spent R500 000 in Durban.

In a statement to the media Cope’s Phillip Dexter says the minister hid behind calls for policy documents to be drafted to guide his department in terms of expenditure.

“This was purely to distract from his extravagance and an attempt to seize the moral high ground in a fiasco of his own making,” said Dexter.

In the statement Dexter asks, why the people of South Africa must foot the bill for the ANC.

“Surely this money should have come from ANC coffers and not from Government funds,” Dexter says.

He says this points to a problem that is endemic in the ruling party's mindset, that the ANC and Government are one and the same.

“This is simply not the case, in short, he misled the public and took from a pool of money which would have been put to better use on the poorest of South Africans, especially in relation to fighting crime,” Dexter concluded.

Dexter says with the South African Police Services already in crisis, both infrastructurally and in the eyes of the public, this would be grounds enough for his resignation.