De Lille distances herself from Western Cape police housing fracas

Public works minister Patricia de Lille has distanced herself from a police housing controversy.

On Thursday families of police officers living in state safe houses owned by De Lille’s department picketed outside the Western Cape police headquarters.

They claimed they are threatened with eviction after rent was hiked from R2,000 to R11,000 in some instances, and said they will be forced to move back to communities where their lives were endangered.

The SA Police and Allied Workers Union and the NGO Ndifuna Ukwazi placed the blame at De Lille’s door.

However, acting public works director-general Imtiaz Fazel distanced De Lille from the fiasco.

“We would like to categorically deny the department of public works and infrastructure is involved in the eviction of police members in these state houses,” he said.

“The department is the custodian of the subject properties. However, the properties are allocated to the police service, whereby the management of the properties resides with the police service.

“The management entails the allocation of properties to its officials, in line with the service’s own internal processes and policies for the purposes of official accommodation.”

Fazel said the police service approached the department in 2018 and 2019 and asked it for a comparable market analysis on a number of properties occupied by officials.

“The department complied and submitted the comparable market analysis reports,” said Fazel.

“If police members were notified of rental increases, this was effected by police  management on their own volition and as part of their own internal processes.

“The public works department did not implement any rental increases. This is also an administrative matter in which minister De Lille is not involved.”

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