Durban - Msunduzi Municipality’s municipal manager, Lulamile Mapholoba, has given the city the green light to develop a policy that will see its councillors provided with bodyguards where necessary.
Mapholoba announced the move at a council meeting last week where he expressed the city leadership’s concern over the safety of its public representatives.
While the move has been supported across the board, there have been calls for extra precaution in the roll-out of the plan to ensure there was no abuse of the policy.
This comes just weeks after Councillor Mabhungu Mkhize was gunned down at France township, and a week after another ANC councillor, Mzwandile Shandu, was killed in an apparent ambush. The two councillors are from the ANC’s Moses Mabhida Region, made up of Pietermaritzburg and surrounding areas.
Less than two weeks after Msunduzi mayor and ANC regional chairperson Mzimkhulu Thebolla expressed his unhappiness about the slow pace of the SAPS in concluding security risk assessments for public representatives, Mapholoba said the municipality was committed to see the policy in action soon. At a council sitting, the city manager stressed the importance of the city being proactive in ensuring the safety of its councillors.
“We can’t leave a vacuum and must have a policy. We cannot fold our arms and allow our councillors to be vulnerable to unscrupulous elements,” he said.
The policy was likely to involve experts in the security and surveillance sector, ensuring that the municipality is able to determine whether a councillor’s life is in danger and the type of security detail they may need.
Council chief whip Sandile Dlamini commended the move, noting how council members could be in danger without even knowing it.
“As a councillor you may be liked by many people, but a tiny fraction may not want you and look at means to bring you harm,” said Dlamini.
The policy is expected to be operational by next year.
Thebolla has said that under current arrangements only senior councillors, including the mayor, deputy mayor, speaker and chief whip, had protection.
DA councillor Bongumusa Nhlabathi said they welcomed the stance of providing councillors with bodyguards, but stressed that they would not be part of the abuse of the policy.
“In principle, we support the move for the protection of any councillor whose life is in danger. There needs to be a thorough analysis before any council decision to provide protection to councillors. We are not for a blanket provision of bodyguards.”
He said if the blanket approach was developed, they would oppose it at all available avenues, including at the SA Local Government Association (Salga) and the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department.
Salga KZN chairperson Thami Ntuli said it was encouraging that the municipality had opted to develop its own policy, adding that they had been calling for this.
“The fact of the matter is that councillors are getting killed and this affects stability at councils and the ability of local government to deliver services,” Ntuli said.
He also expressed opposition to the blanket approach, warning that it had the potential to be abused. “There is not a lot of money for service provision at municipalities and so the funds used for the provision of security to councillors should be used very carefully,” he said.
KZN violence monitor Mary de Haas said while the killing of anyone, including public representatives, was deplorable, political parties should be made to pay for the protection of their deployees.
“Why should it be the public that is made to foot this bill? What needs to happen here is that councillors and their parties should pay for the costs of providing bodyguards,” said De Haas.
She conceded that there were cases where protection of bodyguards was needed, citing the Nongoma Municipality under the Zululand District Municipality as a case in point.