Ramaphosa admits law enforcement ‘could’ve done better’

Ramaphosa conducted an oversight visit in KwaMashu, north of Durban on Friday to assess the damage following this week’s riots.

More that 100 people have died and some 2 000 people arrested following the violence and looting in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

Ramaphosa said while the police could have done better, it also has to be understood that the situation overwhelming.

“Our law enforcement have tried their very best they could do. Yes, we could’ve done better but we were overwhelmed by the situation and primary our focus with ministers was to save a life, to make sure that we did not get into a situation which could’ve resulted in more mayhem.

“The situation could’ve been much worse and our security forces came to the party and did their very best.”

Ramaphosa said government will have to re-examine the way in which it responds to similar situations in future.

“We regret the situation that resulted in this and obviously we are going to have to re-examine everything we do in defence of our people and defence of the assets of our people.

“Right now we are rolling our security forces 25 000 soldiers are now being rolled out and in a short space of time they would’ve flooded the province and in parts of Gauteng as well.”

Ramaphosa told the media that it’s very clear that instigators are behind the unrest.

“We obviously, as a government, are extremely concerned about what happened here and we are doing everything to deal with it. It is quite clear that all these incidents were instigated, there were people who planned it, coordinated it.

“Our intelligence and our police now have a line of the side of what actually was happening here with the instigation, coordination and planning and we are after those people we have identified, a good number of them. We will not allow anarchy and mayhem to just unfold in our country.”

Cabinet is set to meet later on Friday to discuss the events of the past week.

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