KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has hit back at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pledge to deploy the army to crime-ridden townships. Leading a crackdown operation in Durban on Friday, Mkhwanazi urged the men and women in blue to take charge of the law enforcement space and “make the communities feel your presence”.
“I worried yesterday when the president said he’s deploying the army, and I said, ‘oh yes, that means the men and women that I’m leading will not be competent if they are saying the army comes in’,” Mkhwanazi told the officers.
In his State of the Nation Address on Thursday, the president announced that army troops will be deployed to Gauteng and the Western Cape to support police in combating gang violence, illegal mining, and other organised Crime.
The announcement has drawn mixed reactions, with policing expert Jeremy Vearey being quoted by the SABC saying, “SANDF deployments to gang-ridden areas have been tried before, but the results were not sustainable.”
Mkhwanazi also zoomed in on the pervasion of private security companies in the crime-fighting space. “We must do so much that the security companies must not take away our jobs.”
The operation, which was conducted with officials from the Department of Home Affairs as well as inspectors from the Department of Employment and Labour, focused on suspects raids, illegal immigrants, liquor outlets inspections and stop-and-searches.
