ActionSA says the eThekwini Municipality has spent over R100 million protecting councillors instead of using the money to improve safety and services for residents.

The party wants the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to investigate what it calls a misuse of public funds.

Zwakele Mncwango, ActionSA’s KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, said: “more than 60 councillors are receiving VIP bodyguards and are assigned municipal vehicles. The cost of this security is now over R100 million per year, excluding vehicle expenses.” That means roughly one in four members of eThekwini’s 222-seat council, about 27 percent, are on VIP protection said ActionSA.

The controversy unfolds against a backdrop of entrenched political violence in KwaZulu-Natal, where local politics has long been linked to targeted killings of councillors and officials. Security analysts say the province remains the country’s epicentre for politically motivated attacks, with the South African Police Service’s specialist task team still investigating hundreds of cases.

Mary de Haas, a veteran human rights activist and researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Violence Monitor project, has tracked assassinations in the province for decades. She warned that the province’s political culture remains deeply violent. “People are terrified. It is layer upon layer of violence that involves thugs, mafia, drug dealers, corrupt politicians and taxi hitmen. In KZN, might is right. The bullies hold sway and it is getting worse.”

Mncwango said the spending cannot be justified without formal threat assessment reports from the South African Police Service. He added that while some councillors may face genuine threats, the municipality’s priority should be protecting ordinary residents in communities plagued by crime, not politicians with taxpayer-funded bodyguards.

The eThekwini Municipality is governed by an ANC-led coalition that includes the Economic Freedom Fighters and the National Freedom Party.

ActionSA said it will write formally to the national CoGTA ministry to demand a full audit of the city’s VIP protection costs. The party argues that money spent on security details for politicians could instead repair potholes, fix streetlights, or strengthen community policing.