Allegations that Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s KwaZulu-Natal police are favoring Zulu-speaking criminals amid violent rallies over asylum applications have been rejected by the government.
At an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) meeting in Pretoria on Sunday, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni and acting national police commissioner Professor Firoz Cachalia denied the allegations.
The allegations follow violent demonstrations in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last week, during which cars and houses were torched and shops looted. The protests were directed at refugee centres processing asylum applications. Demonstrators oppose a July Constitutional Court ruling that removed procedural barriers to seeking asylum, including for people who entered the country irregularly, lacked asylum transit visas or missed reporting deadlines.
Thirty people have been arrested since Thursday in connection with public violence and alleged attempts to destabilise communities: 25 in KwaZulu-Natal and five in Gauteng. The offences include public violence, illegal gatherings, obstruction and resisting arrest.
“No truth to that insinuation”
Cachalia dismissed any suggestion of favouritism. “There’s absolutely no truth to that insinuation that the police in KwaZulu-Natal, if there’s any suggestion of favouritism. They did a very important job. They did their work,” he said. He added that police had restored stability to the province and that “it’s all quiet at the moment” because officers remain present.
Cachalia recently visited KZN with Premier Thami Ntuli and Mkhwanazi to assess public order in Durban’s central business district and the damage caused. He said he and Ntuli had jointly condemned lawlessness and arson, and that the premier had no interest in encouraging violence given his responsibility to attract investment.
Warning to foreign nationals
Cachalia also referred to an incident in which three Ethiopian nationals were arrested after allegedly discharging firearms. They have since appeared in court. He said foreign nationals, particularly those in the country illegally, must obey the law and not take matters into their own hands. He warned them against confronting anti-illegal immigration protesters: “When you do that, you can only worsen your own situation.”
He questioned why the three men were armed. “There can’t be fiefdoms in South Africa that are, in effect, occupied by groups confronting South Africans,” he said. Police would continue to act in Durban and elsewhere, including Kroonstad in the Free State.
Mkhwanazi’s current role
Ntshavheni said Mkhwanazi no longer holds his substantive position as KZN provincial police commissioner. She said he is serving in an acting capacity as the lieutenant general responsible for organised crime nationally, while KwaZulu-Natal has an acting provincial commissioner. “So let’s not cast aspersions,” she said.
Responding to the claim that criminals were being protected, she said arrests recorded by the National Joint Intelligence Operations (Njoint) were mostly for criminal activity by people in KZN. She declined to comment further on cases before the suspects appear in court.
Funding probe and Home Affairs directives
Ntshavheni said authorities are investigating allegations about funding and financial flows linked to activities that may have used the immigration issue and the Constitutional Court ruling to advance other agendas.
She also addressed directives issued by the Department of Home Affairs without consultation with the IMC. The committee was not caught off guard, she said, but was not consulted. The IMC has now decided that no immigration directives, operational or otherwise, may be issued without full consultation with it, given the implications for other departments and national security. “Those directives created a national security challenge for us, which we are also responding to,” she said. Details will be provided in submissions to a panel of High Court judges established by Gauteng Deputy Judge President Ledwaba.
The IMC will also approach the courts for a supervisory order to oversee implementation of the ruling allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for asylum regardless of how they entered the country.