Cape Town – Police Minister Bheki Cele has once again come under fire in Parliament for attacking DA leader John Steenhuisen over his marital life with an opposition MP saying he was scoring cheap political points.
This comes a day after Cele was ordered by National Council of Provinces chairperson Amos Masondo to withdraw his remarks.
Masondo said it was unparliamentary for Cele to use the issue of a woman who was not even in parliament to defend herself.
EFF leader Julius Malema had objected to Cele when he said Steenhuisen had allegedly abused a young woman in his office before he married her after divorcing his wife.
Some parties said this was a personal matter and had nothing to do with politics.
Cele later withdrew the remarks after Masondo told him to.
During the State of the Nation Address debate DA MP Nazley Sharif said Cele had dragged Steenhuisen’s wife into Parliament when the country was facing the scourge of gender-based violence.
She said over the past five years thousands of women have been raped in the country.
She said that gender-based violence was a matter of life and death as many women and children are on the receiving end of perpetrators.
Cele cannot be allowed to drag an innocent woman into a debate about the police, said Sharif.
She called on the government to stop talking about GBV, but to act against it.
“Now is the time for debates to stop. Gender-based violence and femicide is not a tool to be used for politics. Minister Cele, this is our lives. The crime statistics paint a shocking picture of our incompetence to protect women. You have the nerve to shamefully weaponise the experience of women on this stage and use it as a cheap gimmick,” said Sharif.
She said the crime statistics were staggering and the government has failed to deal with the problem.
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