Hold onto your hats, Joburg, the EFF has just taken over crime-fighting in the city.
Former MP Mgcini Tshwaku was appointed last week as the mayoral committee member for public safety as part of a power-sharing deal with the ANC and smaller parties, and it’s going to be an interesting ride because the 46-year-old is an unconventional politician.
He comes from a politically conscious family in Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape but says the ingrained injustices of South Africa only fully dawned on him when he worked as a professional for Sasol in the 2000s (though he says he understands the culture at the company has since changed).
He cites a pay disparity between him and a white colleague, and says he waited two years before getting an increase after obtaining his master’s, while his white counterpart waited only six months.
With a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, physics and applied mathematics, a BSc and MSc in chemical engineering and a PhD in chemical engineering, Tshwaku felt he was no lightweight.
The humiliation of being overlooked and ignored because of his race led him into the arms of the EFF, he says, shortly before its formation in 2013.
When I first saw Julius in 2008, it was like he was talking directly to me
— Mgcini Tshwaku
“When I first saw Julius [Malema] in 2008, it was like he was talking directly to me. He knew the extent that blacks were being undermined in the workplace,” he says.
Tshwaku says he didn’t follow the “political norms” in helping the EFF to build its Gauteng structures before the 2014 elections but took a “scientific” and logical approach to what is normally a haphazard and emotive exercise.
It paid off, and the EFF performed better in Gauteng than anywhere else. Since then, Tshwaku has served in the Gauteng legislature and the National Assembly.
He now faces a gargantuan task, crime and grime in the country’s economic heartland having reached crisis proportions during years of ANC misrule and unstable coalitions.
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s 2020/2021 report said 77% of Joburg residents felt unsafe when walking in their areas at night, the highest in the province. Nearly half of respondents in Joburg felt crime had worsened in the past year.
Tshwaku is determined to clean up and says he will put aside ideology to do so. “I can confidently say we don’t have public safety in Joburg, everything has collapsed. I was very emotional when I witnessed exactly how bad the situation actually is,” he tells the FM.
“I got the shock of my life. [Metro] police don’t have radios, they use their cellphones. They don’t have vehicles. I am going to start with the basics. This is not about ideology and politics, this is about going in there and just getting the job done.”
It is so incredibly disorganised, it’s chaotic. In a disorganised environment, criminals thrive
— Mgcini Tshwaku
His first task is to stabilise his department and the entities reporting to it. Public safety has had an acting head of department “almost forever”, and the metro police and emergency services also have acting heads.
“It is so incredibly disorganised, it’s chaotic. In a disorganised environment, criminals thrive,” he says.
“So first we will stabilise the administration and the entities. Then we move to outside surveillance cameras, resourcing police, identifying hotspots. Every offramp in the city will have metro police cars stationed there, we have to block exit points for criminals and stop them in their tracks.”
What about lack of resources, the well-used explanation for government failures? Tshwaku calls it a weak excuse. In most cases the resources to do the job are there, he says, but they are not used in the best way.
The metro police is a prime example. “Did you know there are close to 2,000 of them sitting at home most of the time because of the shift arrangement they have in place? Did you know that many of them only work for 16 hours a month? How is that normal?” he says.
“When you deploy uneducated people, this is what you get. But it also doesn’t take an educated person to tell you that this is wrong. It’s simply a matter of logic.”
The shift system means that during peak and heavy periods, when police visibility is most important, many officers have already knocked off.
In his first 100 days, Tshwaku plans to tackle criminality in Hillbrow, the CBD and Yeoville. It’s not about foreigners, he says; anyone breaking the law will be dealt with, including those inhabiting buildings illegally. On Wednesday, Tshwaku planned to be with police as they removed shacks from inner-city streets.
He emphasises that local government is about delivering to residents, and says he is not averse to teaming up with the private sector to do so.
Tshwaku certainly talks a refreshing game, but all talk and no visible action will make him exactly the same as almost every other politician. With the 2024 polls around the corner, the EFF has a lot riding on how he fares.
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