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The Democratic Alliance in Mkhanyakude District welcomes MEC Bheki Ntuli’s announcement that the project to erect 1.5m tall Jersey concrete barriers on the border between South Africa and Mozambique has officially started.

Early this month residents in Jozini brought this town to a standstill following allegations that four SAPS officers were involved in vehicle theft and hijackings in the area.

The project which was launched in 2016, will see an end to the cross-border crime which has been troubling residents for the past ten years. There was a huge spike in carjacking crime between April and September 2019 where about 104 vehicles were taken across the Mozambique border. During the same period, on average 20 vehicles were stolen and moved across this border every month.

In the 2018/2019 Crime statistics, carjacking in Mkhanyakude rose by 200%. The erection of these barriers couldn’t have come at a better time. While we are hoping to see a drastic decrease in crime in this municipality, we are also elated that we won’t have people coming in and out of this country as they like, which could endanger lives of surrounding residents amid the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The DA has played a significant role in ensuring that the crime and issues surrounding this border are finally brought to an end, with a positive outcome. Through our spokesperson on Transport and Community safety we called on MEC Ntuli to prioritize this project and within two weeks the problem has finally been addressed.

We will be keeping a close eye on this project to ensure that it is completed immediately. We do not want to have a case where working equipment gathers dust at the working site under pretence that there is work being done, which has become a norm to a number of municipal projects.

Now more than ever the government needs to secure all our borders to be able to evaluate and control who comes in and out of the country.

Issued by DA