PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Tuesday
SOUTH Africa’s largest and most controversial vigilante group, Mapogo-A-Mathamaga, has been fired from guarding Mpumalanga’s glitzy R600-million legislature complex near Nelspruit.
Safety and security MEC Steve Mabona intervened after media reports that the vigilantes had been appointed to guard the complex because conventional security services and police were unable to stop the systematic theft of building materials.
Mapogo warning signs posted around the complex, which is still being built, were removed last week.
“They have been chased out,” said Mabona, who was flabbergasted when he learnt last month that Mapogo was guarding a key government building.
“It should be impossible. Government cannot use vigilantes to maintain law and order,” he said.
Mapogo is notorious for its heavy-handed mob justice and its members have regularly been charged with murder, assault, torture, kidnapping, intimidation, arson and malicious damage to property.
Mapogo’s leader, Montle John Magolego, and 11 of his lieutenants were acquitted on two murder and five assault charges in Groblersdal last month after witnesses refused to testify against the accused.
The legislature’s construction company, Sivukile Holdings/Stocks & Stocks, said Mapogo was brought in after conventional crime control measures failed.
Mapogo’s presence at the legislature was supplemented by more conventional patrols by Pro Security guards.
Northern Province’s government was forced last year to charge a number of its officials after they insisted on contracting Mapogo to guard everything from schools, to clinics, departmental offices, sports facilities and even police stations.
Officials in the province’s Tzaneen district claimed the police were so poorly trained and equipped that they were literally helpless in the face of better-armed and organised criminal gangs.
The biggest single impediment to police success, officials said, was the fact that they had very few vehicles and that even these were in disrepair and simply stranded due to petrol shortages caused by budgetary constraints.
Even where there were functional vehicles with petrol, over 60% of rural police officers do not have drivers’ licences.
Mapogo, however, has used its membership fees to equip and operate a fleet of rapid response patrol vehicles controlled from a central radio operations centre in Jane Furse. – African Eye News Service