DURBAN - eThekwini Municipality mayor Mxolisi Kaunda is expected to meet Minister of Police Bheki Cele on Wednesday, to deliberate on issues of safety and political killings in the metro.
Kaunda made the announcement at an eThekwini Municipality executive committee meeting (exco) on Tuesday, when the council sought approval to fund the funeral of slain ward 103 councillor Minenhle Calvin Mkhize, 39.
Mkhize was shot dead on Saturday while seated in his vehicle outside his home in Hammarsdale.
Acting city manager Musa Mbhele sought approval to fund the funeral through the civic funeral policy for individuals who have been declared eligible for an official civic funeral by the municipality. An amount of R100 000 was requested.
Mkhize was elected as a council member for eThekwini from November 2021. Mbhele said he was gunned down before he could serve diligently as a community representative.
IFP exco member councillor Mduduzi Nkosi said the city needed to create a platform to discuss the killing of politicians, especially in eThekwini where it happened frequently.
He said the city should speak to all stakeholders including amakhosi because the killings tarnished the image of the city, province and country.
“We need to be proactive and try to assist the police in many ways to engage with the community so that we get these people who are planning to kill councillors,” Nkosi said.
DA councillor and exco member Thabani Mthethwa said eThekwini, unlike other municipalities, had the capacity to act before “these murders happen”.
“I am not sure if Mkhize had received death threats before. If there is proven evidence where a councillor’s life is threatened we should not be reliant on a drawn-out process of getting a report from the SAPS, which takes months. That is where we lose innocent lives, because of these long-drawn-out processes,” Mthethwa said.
He added that in the interim the city should ask their own security management to protect the councillors. He said the city should be proactive and use internal resources.
Kaunda said that when he met Cele he would lobby him to expedite threat assessment reports from the SAPS and also to work on interventions in eThekwini – to put systems in place so threats to councillors were detected early.
“We can report that there are councillors who are receiving threats and we are processing this to prevent the killing of those councillors that came forward. I will deliberate with Cele on matters of safety to find solutions to these challenges of safety that are confronting us,” Kaunda said.
Daily News
