Provincial police chief says more than R30m has been spent to keep KZN safe

KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has attributed a fairly quiet start to the EFF’s protest in Durban on Monday to the party experiencing challenges in transporting protesters to the city.

Mkhwanazi addressed media at Hoy Park in central Durban before embarking on an aerial inspection of what police regard as hotspots, including Phoenix, Inanda and KwaMashu.

Mkhwanazi said: “It’s very quiet all over, but I think they had a bit of a challenge moving these protesters to the city.

“We have never received any notice of any march. Had we received a notice, we would have planned for the routes that they were going to use.

“We don’t know what they are going to do next, but we remain alert. Our members are all over.”

He said he had not done the maths on the costs yet.

“But the figures on those we have mobilised, ordinarily [those] who would have been on a rest day, we spent over R30m on that for KZN alone. We had to pay them special allowance for them to be on duty,” he said.

“There is obviously a lot of other costs involved, like fuel and aircraft.

“We will be able to calculate that when the operation is done.”

He said communities were acting as the “eyes and ears” of the police.

“Communities are also out there. They are not blocking anybody, but they are standing on the side of the roads, just to keep eyes and ears open.”

He said about 10 protesters had been arrested so far, but he still had to update his statistics.

“We started seeing some activity early in the evening last night. But [it was] very few activities, where kids put branches and stones on the road, but police worked very fast in responding to such incidents.

“Other than that, when midnight came, I think the most newsworthy thing was in Umkhanyakude district, in the north of the province, where the community close to the N2 put branches on the road and burnt them. We were able to respond to that as well.

“A truck driver was shot at on the N2 as he was travelling towards Mozambique.

“We don’t know whether this was part of the protests or criminality.”

Mkhwanazi said the driver escaped unhurt. “There was a small incident where there were two branches put on the road near Mooi River. But police responded to that.

“In Hibberdene, on the south coast, we had two vehicles that blocked the road. We confiscated those cars and arrested those involved.

“There were a few arrests, of people who were blocking the roads and refused to disperse even after they were warned,” he said.

“Today we will continue operations, and beyond today we will remain alert because we don’t know what it is they want to do.”

TimesLIVE