Dear Durban
It would appear that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in KwaZulu-Natal has decided not to press ahead with criminal charges brought against Premier Sihle Zikalala for flouting lockdown regulations last year.
Nearly a year ago, on 27 April 2020, the Democratic Alliance (DA) laid criminal charges against Premier Zikalala based on the then Stage 5 lockdown regulations.
The Premier called essential workers to what can only be described as a rally at Clairwood Hospital, in eThekwini, despite the gazetted regulation on the restrictions of movement, section 11 B (ii) stipulating that “every gathering, as defined in regulation 1 is prohibited, except for funeral as provided for in subregulation(8)”.
Seven months later, I wrote to the NDPP, Advocate Shamilla Batohi, asking why there had been no progress in this matter.
According to the investigating officer, Brigadier Mngcwabe, who I was in contact with weekly, the NPA kept promising a decision, yet not a peep had been forthcoming.
To hear today that the matter was quietly slipped under the carpet two months ago, on the 28th of December, without so much as a response to my letter, tells me that – men like Zikalala get away with flouting the law, while ordinary South Africans, those without ANC connections, were persecuted without rationality or mercy.
We are then left asking whether or not the delay in relation to this case against the Premier showed that the NPA actually prosecutes with fear or favour.
It would appear that there are a different set of laws for the powerful and powerfully connected, and another set for the rest of us. All men, it appears, are not equal before the law in South Africa. Men like Zikalala will get away with holding potential super spreader, illegal events at a hospital no less, while citizens were arrested for legally buying groceries.
Regards
Dianne Kohler Barnard MP
DA Shadow Minister of State Security
