Pretoria - The Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation has distanced itself from what it called “barbaric and racist utterances” made by an employee on Facebook this week.
Velaphi Khumalo took to social media and posted that he wanted to “clean” South Africa of all white people.
“We must act as Hitler did to the Jews. I don’t believe anymore that the [sic] is a large number of not so racist white [sic] people. I’m starting to be skeptical even of those within our Movement the ANC. I will from today [Monday] unfriend all white people I have as friends from today you must be put under the same blanket as any other racist white because secretly you [sic] all a bunch of racist fuck heads. as we have already seen. [sic] “ he posted.
Khumalo has since deleted his Facebook page.
Khumalo’s post followed a series of controversial comments – one made by KwaZulu-Natal realtor Penny Sparrow, and another by Standard Bank investment strategist Chris Hart. Their posts were deemed racists and sparked an outrage on social media.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the department said the racist remarks were Khumalo’s personal views. In addition, the department said it did not condone such “hateful and disturbing racial slurs”.
“The Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation views the hateful post by Velaphi Khumalo in a serious light. Our key mandate is nation building and social cohesion. His sentiments take our country backwards and do not reflect what the Gauteng Provincial Government stands for,” said MEC Faith Mazibuko.
Mazibuko added that an internal process was underway to address the matter.
Meanwhile, The South African Jewish Board of Deputies condemned the comments made by Khumalo in the harshest of terms and are expected to submit a formal complaint to the SA Human Rights Commission.
ANA