Minister Fikile Mbalula on Makhosi Khoza close protection

20 Jul 2017

Minister of Police, honourable Fikile Mbalula MP has taken note of the social media statements attributed on the Facebook account reputedly operated by Honourable Khoza about Minister’s comments and how the Honourable Khoza feels she has been dealt by the department of police, SAPS and the Minister himself.

Minister takes the security of elected public representatives and that of all ordinary residents in the republic as a very serious matter – this includes Honourable Khoza.

“Our democracy, though stable, still experiences typical challenges that most former oppressed states go through – heightened lawlessness and violence amongst the communities. The proliferation of guns from either statutory or non-statutory forces become one of the hard issues to grapple with.  Our porous borders are also not assisting us.  As Minister I connect these to the scourge of politically motivated assassinations and violence in KwaZulu-Natal in particular – a matter I am seized with. Honourable Khoza’s security threats are therefore serious. This democracy could evaporate in seconds if elected political leaders are constantly harassed, threatened or killed.

Our mandate in this regard is therefore to be seen in two; that is the protection of all persons and the protection of our democracy itself.

It is in this vein that I, outside of the media glare, as these things should be, have attended to the issues relating to Honourable Khoza and at an operational level have taken it serious and kept check on the cases reported by Honourable Khoza to police.

Her matter was immediately transferred to a Commissioned Officer because of its seriousness. An assessment on her security was conducted and this assessment was constantly looked at whilst the criminal threats to her life were investigated. She was not “left alone”, even if she didn’t know about it.

As far as threats to her girl child, SAPS investigated this and found that there was no threat at all. This matter was closed.

SAPS, also requires that Honourable Khoza avails herself to the investigating officer who continues to battle to get her to a meeting. Honourable Khoza house has also been visited unannounced after SAPS’ frustration with her unavailability to meet them.

As is practice, we do not divulge security arrangements of any person who has been approved or not approved to have close protection or other type of security.

My office’s calls to Honourable Khoza and even those from myself directly have not yielded the result we had hoped for, as it is at this time she refuses to engage with us directly but through Facebook.

We will endeavour to continue reaching out to the Honourable Khoza to put in place what must be put in place for her in accordance with our standard operational procedures as a department.

If needs be, should Honourable Khoza refuse our overtures and open hand, we shall look at other ways of assisting her without her involvement should it come to that.

As ANC NEC member, I also wish to elaborate on the issue of my utterances about Honourable Khoza’ s decision to defy her party’s strategic political decision over the question of dissolving this current administration in a vote of no confidence. As I stated then, the decisions relating to who defies who or what does not enter in the question of law and order where an individual’s life is under physical threat. Political disagreements must never lead to harm and loss of life or injury.

It also goes without saying that a party member who openly decides to defy party instructions or constitution or rules, such a person destroys their party career, they themselves kill such a career. I used the phrase, “suicide bombing her ANC career” in this strict context.

I assure South Africans that no matter your race, creed, religion or social strata, where there exist a real threat to life, SAPS will treat the matter very seriously. No political disagreements enter the space of SAPS operations. Honourable Khoza, likewise is being treated that way, with an added burden on our mandate to protect our institutions of democracy and free political will.

To reiterate, at this time, SAPS have found that there is no threat to any other reported person in honourable Khoza’ s family. SAPS and my office are reaching out and requesting honourable Khoza to please accept our requests to meet her, share with her what our investigations have found and also deal with issues of her security.

It is time for all concerned to pull together and cooperate professionally”

Statement issued by the South African Police Service, 20 July 2017