KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli addressed the media, urging peaceful protests ahead of June 30.
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KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli has issued a stern warning against any repeat of the devastating civil unrest seen in July 2021, urging citizens to reject violence and lawlessness ahead of the planned protests on June 30.
Speaking against the backdrop of tensions surrounding the ‘deadline’ for undocumented foreign nationals to leave South Africa, Ntuli emphasised that while the government acknowledges public concerns regarding migration, the province cannot afford to be “set alight a second time”.
At a media briefing on the state of readiness ahead of June 30, Ntuli condemned the narrative in traditional and social media, that KZN is in the grip of xenophobia and Afrophobia.
He said the government acknowledged concerns raised by communities about the management of undocumented migration, saying authorities are committed to addressing it through proper, lawful and orderly processes, and not through hatred, harassment, or violence directed at any person.
“Let me be clear about something many have tried to misrepresent: ours is not a reactionary posture, conjured up in response to noise on social media or pressure from the streets. It is a continuation of what we began together — government, law enforcement, traditional leadership and institutions, civil society and faith-based organisations — long before this week’s headlines,” Ntuli said, noting the Engangeni Ngesango Iyafohla programme of action on undocumented foreign nationals, launched in 2024.
Reflecting on July 2021, Ntuli said the July 2021 unrest still carries a heavy price tag with estimates from government, business and independent sources putting damage at nearly R20 billion, rising to R50 billion nationally when Gauteng is included.
According to a 2022 Durban business survey, combined losses from stock, machinery, property and lost sales were between R70bn and R75bn.
Ntuli added that more than 40,000 businesses were affected, and about 50,000 informal traders saw their livelihoods go up in smoke. Over 200 shopping centres were looted or destroyed. In days, warehouses, factories, pharmacies, ATMs and post offices were gone.
Within weeks, Ntuli said, up to 150,000 jobs were hung by a thread in KZN. Nationally, later assessments put two million jobs at risk or lost.
He said the Port of Durban ground to a standstill. Investors, including Toyota South Africa, openly questioned whether KZN was still safe to build a future in.
“We were already fighting to recover from Covid-19. July 2021 set us back years we have not yet fully recovered. That is the price chaos extracted from this province. Not from the instigators who vanished into the crowd — but from ordinary workers, traders, mothers and fathers who lost their shops, their jobs, their dignity.
“We buried that pain once. We will not dig that grave again — not for unrest, and not for hatred dressed up as protest. Whatever our concerns about undocumented migration, however legitimate the frustrations beneath them, we will not allow this province to be set alight a second time — whether by criminality or by xenophobia. Our people have already paid that price. We owe them better,” Ntuli said.
The premier said leading up to June 30, and under the Engangeni Ngesango Iyafohla umbrella, the province did not reach this point by accident since February.
According to him, they engaged state and non-state actors through a series of roundtable sessions and a summit, bringing together government, law enforcement, traditional leadership, faith-based organisations and civil society around one table.
“In every one of those sessions, a simple but important consensus emerged: every stakeholder, without exception, acknowledged that we have a problem of unlawful migration that must be confronted.
“But alongside that consensus came another, equally important: stakeholders affirmed the right of our people to protest — that right is not in question — while emphasising, with one voice, that this protest must be peaceful. Not peaceful in theory. Peaceful in practice, from the first step to the last,” ” Ntuli said.
He said Isinsizwa Nobunsizwa leader Nkosikhona ’Phakel’umthakathi’ Ndabandaba and March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma assured government and their followers of peaceful activities, and distanced themselves unequivocally from any calls to violence or looting.
“When the organisers of a march commit publicly to peace, they hand every marcher a responsibility to honour that word. We expect nothing less than that it be honoured, in full, from the first step to the last,” Ntuli said.