The African National Congress (ANC) has vowed to highlight and address challenges posed by illegal miners also known as zama zamas.
The ANC will be staging a protest at the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court west of Johannesburg on Wednesday morning.
The party is calling for illegal mines to be shut down following the arrest of more than 80 people who are allegedly illegal miners.
They were arrested during a police operation following the gang rape of eight women at an abandoned mine in the Krugersdorp area.
SABC News reporter Hasina Gori was in Krugersdorp for the suspects’ first court appearance:
Over the weekend, the ANC held its policy conference which indicated that it wants tighter citizenship laws to keep out undeserving foreigners and also called on its branches to take a lead in helping communities report illegal foreigners to the authorities.
ANC National spokesperson Pule Mabe says, “As the ANC we will be at the Krugersdorp police station joining the picket lines together with the communities of West Village. What we hope to achieve really is to highlight concerns around this illegal mining and even the outrageous rage that we have witnessed over the past week. We also want to put pressure on law enforcement agencies to be able to, mete out any judgment deserving of the crime committed by those that roped these innocent young women.”
“We hope that our government will be waiting with the necessary speed to deal with this issue of illegal mines [and] abandoned mining dumps. We have got to tighten our migration [immigration] laws to make sure that we are able to deal with the illegal immigrants much more decisively,” adds Mabe.
The audio below is the full interview with Pule Mabe:
