President Cyril Ramaphosa has authorised the public release of the expert panel’s report that reviewed the government’s response to the July 2021 unrest.
The 154-page report follows the panel’s probe into the orchestrated public violence, destruction and sabotage, and civil unrest that engulfed parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July 2021.
The president tasked the panel with leading a thorough and critical review of the security services’ preparedness for the July events. The panel was mandated to examine all aspects of the security response and to make recommendations on how to strengthen security capabilities.
The panel was led by Professor Sandy Africa as chairperson alongside advocate Mojanku Gumbi and Silumko Sokupa.
Ramaphosa tabled the panel’s at a meeting of the National Security Council last Friday.
In the report, the panel note that the looting, destruction and violence have come and gone, but they have found that little has changed in the conditions that led to the unrest, leaving the public worried that there might be “similar eruptions of large-scale unrest in future”.
“The question, many argue, is not if and whether more unrest and violence will occur, but when it will occur. The fear of many is that not only will a repeat of such violence find ground in the all-too-familiar contexts of negative political contestation, where certain interests take advantage of the levels of poverty, inequality, lack of service delivery and social tensions to advance their cause,” the report stated.
The panel said that perhaps the most significant input made, “which we heard several times, was that what appears to be factional battles in the African National Congress, have become a serious source of instability in the country”.
They said this was a matter of “great concern”, and the reasons for this needed to be identified sooner rather than later.
The National Security Council, which is chaired by Ramaphosa, welcomed the report and the insights it provided on the work of and challenges faced by security services, law enforcement agencies and relevant organs of state.
Ramaphosa is expected to outline the first actions the government will take in response to the findings and recommendations of the report in his State of Nation Address on Thursday.
The report can be accessed on the Presidency website at https://bit.ly/3LeMZOZ
Political Bureau