The Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG) welcomes Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis's decision to formally declare an intergovernmental dispute with the national Minister of Police over Metro Police investigative powers.
This step is long overdue. The City has been raising this issue since 2022 — first with Minister Cele, and more recently with Acting Minister Cachalia — without a meaningful response. Formalising the dispute under the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act finally forces national government to the table. The CIAG hopes that the City of Cape Town will now show more fortitude that the Western Cape Government on policing.
Over the last seven years, the Western Cape Government has twice called or threatened to call and then withdrawn intergovernmental disputes on policing, despite the question of devolved policing powers - something the Western Cape both wants and needs - never having been resolved.
Whilst intergovernmental disputes are a step in the right direction, the CIAG maintains that the Western Cape Government is failing its people by not asserting their right to policing as an expression of their right to self-determination. Self-determination is a peremptory norm (jus cogens) of international law and cannot be denied by the South African State, whilst regional policing powers are a widely used and accepted expression of self-determination.
The Western Cape is wasting its time invoking section 99 which provides that the national government may devolve policing powers, when section 235 would allow them to be demanded by right.
04 August 2026
