President Cyril Ramaphosa is to address the nation in the coming days on government's response to gender-based violence and provide an update on the investigation into the killings of women in and around Ekurhuleni.
The announcement, made during his Heritage Day address in Oudtshoorn on Thursday, comes as government steps up its response to the discovery of nine women's bodies in Ekurhuleni since July.
It also comes as Parliament examines whether the state's response to GBV is adequately funded and resourced.
The Standing Committee on Appropriations said this week it would engage the ministers of police and social development on the plans and funding available to address GBV. It will examine whether sufficient resources have been allocated and whether those resources are being used effectively.
Committee chairperson Mmusi Maimane said the police budget was about R127 billion for 2026/27, but the police-to-population ratio remained a concern, with one officer for every 427 residents. He said government needed to produce tangible results from the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, adopted in 2020.
That scrutiny comes as government rolls out an emergency response to the Ekurhuleni killings and the wider GBV crisis.
On Sunday, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide announced a Comprehensive Emergency Strategy covering prevention and social cohesion, law enforcement, protection, safety and justice, and victim- and survivor-centred support.
The specialised multidisciplinary team investigating the Ekurhuleni killings has also been elevated and is now coordinated by the Deputy National Commissioner for Detective Services. Government said on Sunday that one of the nine recovered bodies had yet to be linked to a missing-person case.
The response has also moved beyond the investigation
An expanded Operation Shanela has been launched by the SAPS in Ekurhuleni to increase law-enforcement visibility, while government has begun providing psychosocial support to the families of identified victims.
The response now faces questions on several fronts: whether investigators can establish what happened to the women and bring perpetrators to court, whether the wider GBV strategy has sufficient resources and whether the interventions announced by government can be sustained.
Ramaphosa's announcement places those questions alongside a new commitment to report back to the country.
Heritage Day
In his Heritage Day address, he said violence against women could not be regarded as part of South Africa's heritage.
“The abuse, rape and killing of women is not our heritage,” he said.
He said women had the right to walk the streets of the country at any hour without fear and described the suffering of women as a national shame.
He said he would address the nation in the coming days on the steps government is taking to confront GBV and update South Africans on the investigation into the killings of women in and around Ekurhuleni.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of questions in Parliament about whether the country's existing GBV response is adequately supported.
Parliament's scrutiny suggests one of the questions will be whether the machinery being put in place has the resources to do what government says it must do.
The Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities said on Wednesday that the national GBV disaster declaration was not accompanied by dedicated funding. It said it remained unclear whether departments were allocating identifiable resources to the National Strategic Plan on GBV and called for ring-fenced funding.
The committee also identified uneven municipal capacity, inadequate victim-support services, weaknesses in referral pathways and shortcomings in the information used to monitor implementation of the plan.
Committee chairperson Liezl van der Merwe said the committee had brought forward its planned discussion on GBV and would examine whether the national disaster declaration had helped the country respond effectively to the crisis.
The questions extend beyond Ekurhuleni. Government's emergency strategy is intended to address the wider national GBV crisis, while the Ekurhuleni investigation remains a specific and urgent part of the response.
Ramaphosa's promised address is therefore expected to set out both the immediate response to the Ekurhuleni killings and the broader steps government is taking on GBV.
For the families of the nine women, however, the most immediate issue remains the investigation into their deaths.
Police have not established that the cases are connected. Government has instead put a specialised investigation into the killings in place and elevated the team handling it.
Ramaphosa has now promised to report back to the country on that investigation.
The next test will be whether that update provides new answers on the Ekurhuleni cases and shows how government's wider GBV response will move from plans and commitments into sustained action. - additional reporting Vivian Warby
THE NATIONAL