The report of the Moerane Commission has revealed not all killings of politicians which took place at the Glebelands Hostel in Umlazi south of Durban are related to politics. The report shows that some killings are linked to criminality.
In their evidence, the police told the commission that the killings at Glebelands were not politically motivated. The commission also found that other killings were linked to the issuing of tenders and are mostly internal.
The commission was established on the 28th of October 2016 following the spate of killings of politicians which were believed to be politically motivated.
The report shows that the centre of political killings in KwaZulu-Natal is mostly internal within each party and is also linked to tenders.
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Willies Mchunu released the report on Thursday at the provincial Legislature in Pietermaritzburg.
During the sitting of the commission , ANC NEC member Senzo Mchunu had told the commission that the killings were related to greed with each group citing, “It’s their time to eat.”
Premier Mchunu says the report suggested that each party should form training which will help unite its officials.
“The centre of the killings of politicians is the political parties themselves. You would have heard that the commission had addressed particularly the concern of everyone, intra-party political killings.”
The commission also found that there are serious weaknesses in the entire criminal justice system, especially the national and the crime intelligence. It says this obviously hampers the prevention and resolving of cases related to political murders.
“The criminal justice system is a national competency not a provincial competency. Everything in government is done in terms of law and we do what is mandated by law.”
In respect of the situation at the Glebelands Hostel, the Commission found it was not entirely related to politics but was mostly related to criminality. It says the lack of maintenance and allocation of beds resulted in violent competition for control of a lucrative business of controlling the renting of beds.
“This culture of killings of one another of political leaders (was) not only for political reasons, even for criminal reasons, because politicians killed in Glebes were not killed for politics, but for criminal actions. They even deprived the municipality of running its own administration.”
The commission recommended that there be an investigation of the tendering system and procedures to ensure if the issuing processes followed adhere to the constitutional principles. The commission ruled that this will be referred to the National and Provincial Treasury.
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