By BAKANG MOKOTO
15 May 2025- The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) in the North West said it has taken serious note of a video currently circulating in social media platforms wherein the North West MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management, MEC Wessels Morweng, is seen confronting individuals allegedly occupying the George Dick Montshioa International Airport without authorisation and instructing them to vacate the premises.
The uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s Provincial Convenor, Alfred Motsi has further taken note that the George Dick Montshioa International Airport is under 24-hour security surveillance by Eagle Eye Security. Motsi said, therefore, the North West Provincial Government ought to have known before about such illegal occupation of a strategic key point by foreign nationals.
“The North West Provincial Government has for many years been talking about repositioning GD Montshioa International Airport as an Airport City and designated Mahikeng Industrial Development Zone (MIDZ) into a special economic zone.
“In many successive States of the Province Address (SOPAs) by various Premiers and the budgets, were allocated to revitalize the airport. Therefore, the recent discovery of illegal occupation of the airport should demonstrate to the public that the previous Premiers and previous Community Safety MECs were in fact incompetent and were sleeping on duty,” he said.
Motsi said uMkhonto weSizwe Party views this incident as an embarrassment of high magnitude that Nigerian foreign nationals have been illegally occupying the GD Montshioa International Airport for about seven years without any lease agreement, without their documents being checked, without paying any rent and whilst enjoying electricity being paid for by South African residents under the watchful eye of the ANC-led government.
He said the airport is one of the key strategic points in the country and therefore the North West Department of Public Works and Roads as the custodian of government property, as well as the police intelligence should have been the first to have picked up the illegal existence of the long occupation of a national strategic key point by foreign nationals.
“It is a huge embarrassment that the North West Provincial Government did not know of the residence of foreign nationals in and the activities taking place in an airport, which is a national strategic key point.
“Therefore, we make an urgent call for investigation for the manifest official omissions and sleeping on duty for about seven years on the part of the North West Department of Community Safety and Transport Management and Public Works and Roads,” said Motsi.
He said uMkhonto weSizwe Party will reject any plea for ignorance, that no one from the provincial government does not know about this situation. Motsi said this incident should also serve as a manifest indicator of lack of ethical leadership and clean governance on the part of the ANC-led government.
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