'I shop at PEP' - Steenhuisen defends crime wardens remark
DA leader John Steenhuisen has refused to apologise for his controversial remarks on the Gauteng Crime Prevention Wardens.
Steenhuisen has come under fire from some quarters for labelling the wardens, who are also known as Amapanyaza after the Gauteng premier, "untrainable drunkards wearing ill-fitting PEP store uniforms".
The comment made during a DA event in Soshanguve has angered many South Africans, who have accused him of racism.
But Steenhuisen believes the public is overreacting.
He spoke to JacarandaFM News on the sidelines of an event hosted by the Multi Party Charter of South Africa in Johannesburg on Thursday.
"I think it is a complete overreaction. I shop at PEP store, 90% of my children's clothing comes from the PEP store, to have this notion that only black people shop at PEP is frankly ridiculous," said Steenhuisen.
He believes South Africans are failing to confront the real issue.
"We have these crime wardens on the streets, they have crashed 22 vehicles, they are beating up ordinary civilians. They are attacking legitimate police officers, they are sitting at police stations pretending to be commissioners of oaths, and some of them are involved in crimes themselves. This is an outrage," he said.
The crime wardens were the brainchild of ANC Gauteng chairperson Panyaza Lesufi, who is also the Gauteng premier
Steenhuisen reiterated his belief that the wardens behave like drunkards.
"When you crash 22 BMWs, go around destroying infrastructure and destroying people's properties - that is a drunkard's behaviour," he said.
The 6000 cohorts were recruited in April last year as part of the premier’s commitment to fight crime in the province and they went through a three-month intensive training programme.
The group was trained to strengthen the existing law enforcement officials in the fight against crime at the ward level.
Following their graduation, the wardens were deployed to target hotspot areas in crime prevention operations, however, the program was met with a lot of criticism.
They have recently been given the same legal status as provincial traffic officers.
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