KZN police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi during his testimony before the ad hoc committee.
Image: Henk Kruger
In a dramatic turn at Parliament yesterday, KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, told lawmakers that during the July 2021 unrest, he had formally requested a shutdown of social media, a measure he believed might have blunted the spiralling looting and violence.
According to Mkhwanazi, one of the five ministers in the national security cluster vetoed the proposal.
The unrest hit hardest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
The security response was overwhelmed: thousands of arrests were made, and the government deployed delays in mobilising military support and restoring order. Beyond its immediate violence, the unrest disrupted supply chains, infrastructure, and essential services, with knock-on effects across logistics, banking, retail, and public services.
The financial consequences of the July 2021 unrest were enormous, and remain subject to ongoing debate and investigation.
The economy is estimated to have lost around R 50 billion during and immediately after the unrest.
Sasria reported claims of R 32 billion, of which roughly 99 % were settled. Within KwaZulu-Natal alone, insurance companies' losses were estimated at R 20 billion.
At a national level, the looting and damage affected roughly 40,000 businesses, 50,000 informal traders, and placed 150,000 jobs at risk, Sasria said.
During his parliamentary testimony, Mkhwanazi said that as the violence escalated, he believed social media platforms were being used to coordinate looting, incite unrest, and amplify messaging in real time.
He therefore proposed to national authorities that social media be shut off or severely curbed temporarily, a drastic measure he considered necessary under the circumstances.
However, he claims that one of the ministers in the national security cluster opposed the move, effectively rejecting the request.
Which minister objected, and on what legal or constitutional grounds, was not disclosed in his statement.
“When the [July 2021 riots started] I said, ‘shut down communications, declare a state of emergency’”, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi told Daily Maverick.
The response from higher up was that his request was “mad”, he said.
He specifically wanted X and WhatsApp group chats to be shut down.
Mkhwanazi acknowledged that had his proposal been accepted, he and other officials would likely have faced widespread criticism from nearly every sector of society — “but we would not have seen the level of destruction that followed,” he said.
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