WC govt under fire for how it handles sexual abuse allegations

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Back in January 2019, a senior official from the province’s Treasury department was arrested by Cape Town police, after he allegedly raped a 7-year-old boy.

FILE: Suspended Western Cape Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz. Picture: Lizell Persens/Eyewitness News

CAPE TOWN – The Western Cape government has again come under fire for its handling of sexual abuse allegations against its members.

Back in January 2019, a senior official from the province’s Treasury department was arrested by Cape Town police, after he allegedly raped a 7-year-old boy.

The matter has been in and out of courts, but the accused was never suspended and still retains his position.

It’s now emerged that the NPA withdrew the case, reportedly because the child was not able to testify.

GOOD secretary general Brett Herron has now written to the premier, demanding answers around why this case was not treated with the same seriousness as that of suspended MEC Albert Fritz, who’s also facing sexual abuse allegations.

Herron said the Cape’s current traffic chief Farrel Payne has also not been suspended.

“We have a head of our traffic department currently being prosecuted for sexual assault and we have a provincial Treasury employee that was not suspended by this government; they were allowed to continue to work in this environment. This is a serious allegation and a serious prosecution , and it is not the kind of employee that should be protected.”

In the child molestation case, Fritz’s office was asked to provide a court watching brief, a request Advocate Venice Burgins said never materialised.

Herron said this connection to Fritz and the history of the DA in the province were deeply troubling.

“The thing that worries me most about Western Cape government is the culture that is developing within this government that was acknowledged by the former DA leader Bonginkosi Madikizela when he addressed Parliament in December 2019, and when he said we have a disturbing culture for sex for jobs, sex for tenders, sex for marks in our government and that we should start by getting our house in order as a government.”

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