KwaZulu-Natal’s transport minister on Tuesday again justified his convoy’s recent speeding and called for the name of the ”racist” motorist who filmed it.
”He is a self-made, arrogant, non-accountable individual who purports to be a good citizen and I will dare to argue that he is also a racist,” said Bheki Cele in a statement.
He said the motorist who had used his cellphone to film Cele’s convoy speeding at 160km/h had broken the law. The Witness newspaper, which ran the story in April, has refused to reveal the name of its source.
”We want his name so that he could explain his breaking of the law, which includes speeding, using a cellphone whilst driving and threatening the premier’s security,” the provincial minister said.
Cele said the National Road Traffic Act of 1996 exempts the police, traffic officers and defence-force members from speeding with blue lights. This includes the police’s VIP protection unit driving provincial ministers in ”the execution of their duties”, he said.
He repeated his accusation that the Witness had a ”close relationship with a political party”. Both the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Witness have rubbished claims that the newspaper was an IFP mouthpiece.
Cele said he was late for the launch of a pedestrian safety campaign in KwaMashu after his flight from Johannesburg to Durban was delayed by more than an hour. This, he argued, turned a ”well-planned and scheduled meeting” into an ”emergency”.
The chairperson of the Zululand Coordinated Traffic Committee, Paul Oliver, said on Friday that courts would look at life-and-death situations to determine whether an emergency was involved. ”If a law-enforcement officer is late for a meeting, he should not be speeding. I would not deem it to be an emergency in the execution of his duties.”
Cele said ”unforeseen circumstances” and crises to which provincial ministers — but not ordinary South Africans — have to respond force them to be late for scheduled meetings.
In an editorial, the Witness said it refuses to be bullied by Cele into revealing its source. ”Just because in this instance the speedsters happen to be senior politicians — and, by Cele’s own admission, himself, whenever he is late for an appointment — doesn’t make speeding excusable.”
The newspaper reminded Cele and his colleagues that they are not above the law and called on them to use their power with ”maturity and discretion”. — Sapa