Nkandla mayor and officials arrested for breaching lockdown regulations

Nkandla mayor Thami Ntuli has cried foul play after he was arrested for breaching national lockdown regulations on Thursday.

Speaking to TimesLIVE on Friday, Ntuli — who is also the provincial chairperson of the IFP — said the municipality had embarked on a programme to hand out food parcels and hand sanitiser to street vendors.

He and six other municipal officials, including his deputy and the council speaker, were confronted by police.

“We had gone to a local taxi rank to hand out some of these parcels to the street vendors — many of whom have been severely affected during this lockdown,” he said.

Ntuli said the taxi rank was bustling when they arrived, with a number of commuters waiting for transport.

“We told the vendors to come one by one, collect their parcels and go back to their stands,” he said.

However, he said a crowd began to gather once they saw the municipality was handing out the parcels.

“We decided to close the programme and head back to the municipal offices. I then received a call from the local police informing me that they had received an instruction from above to arrest me and the municipal officials who were part of the programme,” he said.

Ntuli, the deputy mayor, speaker of the municipality and four other municipal officials drove to the police station where they were required to give a statement before being granted R1,000 station bail.

“The sad part is that they also arrested 13 of the street vendors and made them sign an admission of guilt fine of R1,500. I doubt those people even knew what they were signing for.”

He claimed that the instruction was definitely politically motivated.

“The premier [Sihle Zikalala] was in Umlazi on Wednesday doing the same thing,” he charged.

He said the decision to stop the programme had left many people without anything for the Easter long weekend.

“Someone thinks they're the only one's who can go out and support people who are starving. They seem to think these people must starve until they come to help them.”

He said the municipality was planning on continuing with the programme in the future.

Ntuli and the other officials are expected to appear in court on May 19.

Police could not be reached for comment, however, News24 quoted police minister Bheki Cele as confirming Ntuli's arrest.

According to reports, Cele said Ntuli had been arrested because “he did what he was not supposed to do”. 

He had been addressing  journalists following a ministerial visit to Engcobo in the Eastern Cape.

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