Political killings to take priority
Residents joined an anti-crime march to Pinetown's Santi sports field, where they were addressed by Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa. Picture: Abhi Indrarajan Residents joined an anti-crime march to Pinetown's Santi sports field, where they were addressed by Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa. Picture: Abhi Indrarajan
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa will on Tuesday convene a meeting with various political parties to address the increase of politically related killings in the province in recent months.
Mthethwa said he had already met provincial commissioner Lieutenant Mmamonnye Ngobeni to discuss the scourge.
While a special task team was at work in the province, working on solving such crimes, Mthethwa said that a national task team would also monitor the volatile situation in KwaZulu-Natal.
“We’ll beef up the task team so they can monitor the situation from a national level,” the minister said after addressing residents from St Wendolins, near Pinetown, about the importance of community-police partnerships in the fight against crime.
Tuesday’s meeting comes after Safety MEC Willies Mchunu said the provincial government had asked Mthethwa to establish a national intervention task team to probe such killings.
Briefing members of the legislature two weeks ago, Mchunu said 32 politically motivated killings had been recorded in KZN over the past four years.
Notorious
He had warned that the province could once again become the killing fields – a notorious reputation it earned in the 1980s and the early 1990s – if the recent spate of political killings continued.
Mchunu said what was of concern with these murders was that they involved mainly intra-party conflicts, which were difficult to resolve.
The National Freedom Party has already lost 21 members since its inception in 2010, while three top ANC officials had recently been gunned downed.
The party last month held an urgent meeting with Ngobeni to discuss the killings of its members.
The Sunday Tribune reported on Sunday that the eThekwini municipality had last year paid R18 million to protect 11 councillors who believed that their lives were in danger.
The city was now paying R1.4m a month for bodyguards.
Asked whether he was concerned about the in-fighting that had plagued the ANC as it prepared for its December elective conference, Mthethwa said it would be “premature” to have such concerns.
“It is difficult to say, but suspects have been arrested for some of these political killings, and cases are continuing,” he said.
Earlier, Mthethwa had joined the community in a march against crime before fielding questions from aggrieved residents who complained about police inefficiency and complacency.
He also heard how the police in the area often cited a lack of police vehicles as the reason why they couldn’t attend to urgent matters.
The residents urged Mthethwa to address their concerns, before another of their number was raped and killed.
The residents were referring to a May incident where a teenage girl was found raped and murdered in the area.
One resident, Thandazile Ntuli, told Mthethwa how she was attacked and shot 21 times at her house, and how the police were dragging their feet in solving the attempted murder case.
Sobbing uncontrollably, Ntuli said her grief was compounded by the police’s apathy.
Mthethwa warned the officers who attended the meeting that he would not tolerate complacency, nor officers who rested on their laurels.
“If an officer does not want to carry out their duties, then they are more than welcome to resign,” he said.
“There are plenty of other people who want these jobs.”