KZN's 'Forgotten Communities': Still no response from MEC despite seven farm murders in seven months
17 March 2020
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) extends its deepest condolences to the family of farmer Collin Britz and to the community following his brutal murder in broad daylight yesterday near Elandskraal in Northern KZN.
According to reports, Mr Brits was shot and killed by a group of armed men who were apparently waiting inside his home. There are no witnesses to the shooting, but farm workers reported hearing gunshots before fleeing the scene. A rifle and a pistol were stolen during the farm invasion.
The DA has today written to KZN Agriculture and Rural Development MEC, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi to notify her of yet another senseless and premeditated incident involving a farmer.
Yesterday’s tragedy brings to seven the total number of incidents reported by the DA to the MEC since September last year. Yet, to date, we have not received a single response.
Nor has the MEC acknowledged the solutions we have offered in the fight for safer rural areas and farming communities – programmes which are already being rolled out in the DA-led Western Cape through the R1 billion safety plan.
It is clear that the MEC and her government are not willing or prepared to acknowledge the growing problem in KZN around farm murders and rural safety in general. The time has come for these communities to fight back and force government to sit up and acknowledge their plight.
It is on this basis that the DA in KZN has launched our ‘Forgotten Communities’ campaign. The campaign aims to provide citizens with an opportunity to have their voices heard in the Legislature, given both the MEC and the province’s ANC-led governments lack of empathy and action.
Citizens can share their experiences or concerns by going to the link in their preferred language.
- English: http://bit.ly/RuralSafety
- Afrikaans: http://bit.ly/BeskermOns
- IsiZulu: http://bit.ly/Sivikele
The DA now calls on MEC Sithole-Moloi and KZN's Agriculture committee chairperson to convene an urgent joint sitting of the province’s Community Safety and Agriculture portfolios to address this issue and review KZN’s long outdated 2010 rural safety plan.
We expect the MEC to, once and for all, act in the interests of those living in our province’s rural areas. The DA remains committed to its role in the KZN Legislature as the only voice fighting for rural safety and the protection of our farming communities.
Issued by Chris Pappas, DA KZN Spokesperson on Agriculture and Rural Development, 17 March 2020
