Police minister Fikile Mbalula said that police had identified a 17-year-old Gugulethu girl as the person sending threatening messages to MP Makhosi Khoza and several ministers.

Mbalula made the revelations during a press briefing at Umlazi’s notorious Glebelands Hostel on Friday after he had conducted an inspection of the violence-riddled complex.

He said that a link had been established between the young woman and the Democratic Alliance (DA) based on “information posted on social networks”, but added that police had not found any official proof that the girl was a member of the DA.

“The person who has been threatening Dr Makhosi Khoza is a minor female, 17-year-old Grade 10 pupil at a high school in Gugulethu, Cape Town. Twelve cellular phone numbers used to threaten people were successfully traced to her and her mother,” he said.

Describing the girl as a “troubled minor”, Mbalula said that investigations included interviewing the girl’s parents, social workers, occupational therapists from the place of safety where the girl was kept and others who had succumbed to her offences.

“Doctor Khoza had intimated that the threats on her life were as a result of ANC infighting. Dr Khoza was not telling South Africans the truth or facts on this particular matter. These threats came from a troubled minor child and [Khoza] was not the only person threatened this way,” he said.

The young woman had also threatened “about seven people” who were members of the National Assembly, he said, including Communications Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and Social Development minister Bathabile Dlamini.

Dlodlo had opened a case of intimidation in Gauteng against the minor, he said.

“Minister Dlodlo was threatened in a similar modus operandi in July 2017. There is an additional investigation in Cape Town central where the victim even approached the court to interdict the minor female,” he said.

According to Mbalula, the child’s father told police that he often had to intervene when the girl displayed the same behaviour within her own community.

Investigations had further revealed that in 2016 the girl was admitted to a place of safety at Elsies River in Cape Town after writing to the ministry of social development alleging that her mother was “sending her to foreign nationals for sex and was also involved in drugs”.

– African News Agency (ANA)