Johannesburg - Reacting to the looting and violence that swept through Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal on Monday, ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said the ANC should not be held responsible for the stealing and damage to infrastructure carried out in the name of former president Jacob Zuma.
A number of malls and shops were looted, vandalised, and some even burned down, by individuals claiming to be protesting in the name of the former president.
"These are not ANC members, we must be careful. We must not make the ANC to be part of something that is not involved in. When you loot a shop, that's a criminal activity, it has nothing to do with the ANC – a crime is a crime," Mabe said
Former State Security Agency agent Lloyd Mhlanga said, to a certain degree, the intelligence community has also failed the country, since it was the job of the country’s intelligence apparatus is to collect information and assist decision makers to avert events that may affect law and order.
"This has been brewing for some time and there are two factors which have factored the intelligence services. The first one is that the capacity has not been built over time, you'll remember that the intelligence was found wanting from as early as 2005/6 and from that period on, we have completely lost focus in collecting information that is being proactive.
“The second problem is the issue of attrition of several officers, who have left the services in intelligence. There is a mantra that an intelligence officer is an officer for life. Now, here in South Africa, the problem we have experienced is that most of those people were not retained within the system so that they can assist incoming police intelligence to collect proper information, that can help to prevent such eventualities that would have adverse effect on the democracy of the country," he said
Mhlanga said the government must take stock in addressing issues of socio-economic intelligence.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said government was warned many times to deal with the unemployment issue
He said the ongoing violent protests just need a spark to lead to the current scenes in some parts of the country.
"Many South Africans, who have been in denial because they are not on the receiving end of that crisis of poverty, unemployment, corruption, and inequalities have been in denial, despite the several warnings we have made that this is just not sustainable. You can't have a country, rated the fifth in the world interims of its wealth by the City Bank and the IMF, but that has a 63% unemployment rate for its youth below the age of 24 – youth who are not in any training, not in any employment but roaming the streets and they are involved in what you call social crisis, which includes the pandemic of drugs, nyaope, the pandemic of crime – where we have to pick up 58 bodies of our people, who perish through violent crime. This is not normal," said Vavi.
"Every one of our major metros are surrounded by a ring of fire, none of them are any exception. You needed to just have a spark and a spark has happened. We can only pray that this does not go to every community of this country, because there is no police, no army will be big and strong enough to be able to calm that situation down," Vavi said.
Political Bureau