The City of Johannesburg has suspended an employee after receiving a complaint emanating from a video in which the official is overheard racially abusing a newly insourced security guard.
Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba said the City is in possession of the video of the incident that took place earlier this month at Eldorado Swimming Pool.
“The official is overheard regretting the use of school facilities in Eldorado Park by black children and referring in an insulting manner to a so-called ‘black mentality’,” the mayor said.
“As the Executive Mayor and as a man who has weathered the storm of our racist past, I am insulted by what has transpired.”
The City’s Community Development Department suspended the official with immediate effect pending a disciplinary enquiry. The mayor said he will take the security guards to lay a criminal case of crimen injuria, which means to unlawfully, intentionally and seriously impair the dignity of someone else, at the police.
“There must be no place for racism, it must be condemned and addressed decisively. Racists must never feel that they can operate with impunity or that their behaviour is acceptable in any circles,” Mashaba said.
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