KZN political killings: DA to engage with Advocate Moerane ahead of roundtable discussions

7 September 2023

The DA will write to Marumo Moerane – the Advocate behind a 2018 special commission into political killings in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) – requesting an engagement ahead of roundtable discussions to find solutions to the ongoing scourge.

The discussions - which form part of the DA’s anti-crime campaign in the province – will see talks between KZN Legislature party political leaders later this month.

The DA’s request to engage with Advocate Moerane also comes after a media briefing by Police Minister, Bheki Cele in Durban yesterday during which he made several bold comments.

The first of these is the implication that political parties themselves know who is behind the killings. If this is the case, the Police Minister must reveal what he knows.

Of further concern are his flippant comments when it comes to the failure to implement all of the recommendations from the Moerane Commission despite five years having passed since its release.

This commission investigated the underlying causes of political killings in KZN and was conducted at a cost of R15 million to KZN taxpayers. It cannot simply be ignored by Minister Cele.

Until the Minister addresses the cause and not the symptom of political killings our province will remain on a knife edge.

The DA sincerely hopes that Advocate Moerane will be in a position to engage with us ahead of our meetings with KZN’s leaders. The time has come to stand up and have hard conversations about ongoing political violence on our doorstep.

We remain committed to finding solutions that will bring peace to our province.

Issued by Francois Rodgers, Leader of the DA in the KZN Legislature, 7 September 2023